JAMES FIELD

LABGENIUS

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The Research and Applied AI Summit (RAAIS) is a community for entrepreneurs and researchers who accelerate the science and applications of AI technology. In the lead up to our 5th annual event on June 28th 2019 in London, we’re running a series of speaker profiles to shed more light on what you can expect to learn on the day!

Adding to our biology meets computation theme, we’re thrilled to welcome James Field from LabGenius! Driven by his passion for protein engineering, James founded LabGenius in 2012 while still a PhD student at Imperial College London. During his degree, James used protein engineering to develop a platform for targeted drug delivery using nanocages. LabGenius’ mission is to harness evolution using AI to generate radically novel therapeutic proteins. To do so, LabGenius has developed EVA, an autonomous AI-driven evolution engine for the discovery of high-value proteins. The company uses its platform technology to develop new products in partnership with world-leading multinational pharmaceutical companies.

The company has grown a lot over the last 18 months from 7 to 25 FTEs and has developed a state-of-the-art hybrid product engineering and life science research facility in South London:

watch raais 2019 on youtube

In his talk at RAAIS 2019, James will outline the LabGenius mission and strategy. He will explore their approach for therapeutic protein engineering and showcase examples of their technology in action at various steps of the development pipeline. James will also reflect on the future for empirical computation, which is the concept of using machines to accelerate search space exploration in complex systems to deliver radically new results. You can read more about his thoughts on empirical computation here.

labgenius empirical computation framework

Prior to LabGenius and his PhD, James completed a BSc in Biology with Microbiology and an MRes in Systems and Synthetic Biology, at Imperial College London. In 2017, James was awarded the BBSRC Innovator of the Year award for early career impact. In 2018, James featured on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list for Science & Healthcare. James is also a fellow of the prestigious Synthetic Biology Leadership Excellence Accelerator Program (LEAP).