Interviews with Experts

Trey Ideker has been appointed as the new Director of the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute (BDI). He will take up the role in June. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where he also leads and co-leads several major data-driven research initiatives, including an ADAPT Center for Precision Oncology, the Cancer Cell Map Initiative, and the Bridge2AI Functional Genomics Data Generation Program.

Dear Trey,

What are your plans for the Oxford's Big Data Institute? What is your vision of data science and AI, and, more broadly, of science in this age of advancing AI?

Trey:

Stanley (Stan) Crooke has spoken with Anindya Bagchi, Giovanni Paternostro and Guy Salvesen. Stan is the founder and former CEO of Ionis Pharmaceuticals. He has been also an academic scientist, a leader in large pharma companies and a physician. He is now a philanthropist, having founded the n-Lorem Foundation, to use the antisense technology developed at Ionis for patients with very rare genetic diseases, where the commercial model did not suffice.

Dear Stan,

Our first question is about your inspiring personal journey. You started as a scientist, you worked for pharma in leadership positions, you were an academic scientist, you were a practicing doctor. And then, of course, you had an important role as a biotech founder. And now you are a philanthropist. What is the common element of all the roles you have played?

Stan:

Payson R. Stevens was President and Creative Director of InterNetwork, Inc. and InterNetwork Media, Inc., science/consulting groups with clients in government, industry, and academia. He has received the US Presidential Award for Design Excellence. Originally trained in molecular biology at the City University of New York and in biological oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UC San Diego, Stevens also studied at the Arts Students League and the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He has been involved with traditional and new media as an artist, designer, writer, and filmmaker for over 50 years. Since 2000 he has supported philanthropic activities, benefiting the Great Himalayan National Park and humanitarian work in India. He is now exploring the role of AI in society, including authoring a book entitled "Before AI Decides: Nine Ways to Stay Human".

Dear Payson,

Your recent book addresses a general audience but many of the points you…

Guy Salvesen and Giovanni Paternostro have interviewed Talmo Pereira, a Fellow and Principal Investigator at the Salk Institute. His lab builds computational tools that leverage deep learning and computer vision to study complex biological systems. He has developed widely used tools that track movements for animal studies of behavior (1).

Dear Talmo,

What could be achieved if there was a public or nonprofit AI effort with the same scale and level of funding as the current large private efforts? What would be the benefits for society? 

Talmo: