David Ho Highlights Launch of Bio-IT Asia Conference

Ten years after the launch of the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo series in Boston, the conference made its debut in Asia in the sparkling Marina Bay Sands convention center.  The trio of speakers who opened the three-day meeting was veteran HIV researcher David Ho, bio-IT consultant Chris Dagdigian, and AstraZeneca bioinformatician Yaron Turpaz. 

...Yaron Turpaz worked in Singapore for several years with Eli Lilly before assuming his current position as vice president of informatics and information sciences, R&D, AstraZeneca...AstraZeneca has seen demands among its own scientists that mimic requirements across the industry, Turpaz said. AstraZeneca now has its own app store, having developed internal mobile apps for scientists to access their data, and public apps for physicians and patients around specific indications. Real time modeling and simulation tools are also in demand. Scientists want their data to be computed yesterday, Turpaz said. 

Finally, Turpaz encouraged a diversity of mindsets and ways of thinking in drug discovery because we often miss the things we were not specifically looking for (a video example). Open innovation or pre-competitive collaborations such as the Asian Cancer Research Consortium, Pistoia Alliance, and the Galaxy-based platform CISTROME, and others can bring together different perspectives and truly accelerate our pipelines...