Sajith Wickramasekara, founder and CEO of Benchling, describes the iterative and non-deterministic nature of life sciences research at Data Driven NYC.
“For most antibody research. The discovery process itself is a work in process. There's no formula for spitting out a drug by going through some set of steps that's going to work.”
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AssertionNot checkable as stated
Wickramasekara: Clunky enterprise systems force pharma scientists to email sensitive IP
“A lot of these companies, they do have systems that exist, but they're quite clunky and not integrated. So the scientists resort to using email, and this is whatever email systems they have set up. Sometimes they're personal gmails as well.”
Sajith WickramasekaraFeb 3, 2017▶ 15:37Drug Discovery as a Data Problem // Sajith Wickramasekara, Benchling (FirstMark's Data Driven)
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Wickramasekara: Advanced drug development lacks modern software and data infrastructure
“You would think that such deliberate advanced science would have a large amount of software and advanced data behind it as well, but that's actually not the case.”
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Wickramasekara: Curing cancer with Excel is worse than dev without version control
“They're literally trying to cure cancer using Excel. This is the equivalent of one of the companies you work at building software without version control. It's honestly probably a little worse, actually.”
Sajith WickramasekaraFeb 3, 2017▶ 6:01Drug Discovery as a Data Problem // Sajith Wickramasekara, Benchling (FirstMark's Data Driven)
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Wickramasekara: Applying standard data practices to life sciences requires little domain expertise
“Using quite standard data practices we were able to make a big dent in a really high impact field that touches everyone and it doesn't require a ton of domain expertise.”
Sajith WickramasekaraFeb 3, 2017▶ 12:51Drug Discovery as a Data Problem // Sajith Wickramasekara, Benchling (FirstMark's Data Driven)
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Wickramasekara: Life science research still runs on paper, email, and Excel
“This is an industry that runs on paper, email, and Excel, and it's something that touches everyone.”
Sajith WickramasekaraFeb 3, 2017▶ 3:28Drug Discovery as a Data Problem // Sajith Wickramasekara, Benchling (FirstMark's Data Driven)
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Wickramasekara: Scientific research can largely be broken down into processes
“Science can sometimes seem like an art, and it is to some degree, but a lot of it can be broken down into a process.”
Sajith WickramasekaraFeb 3, 2017▶ 10:44Drug Discovery as a Data Problem // Sajith Wickramasekara, Benchling (FirstMark's Data Driven)
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