Can computers discover new medicines?
The Life Scientific
BBC
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 27 September 2022
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Daphne Koller was a precociously clever child. She completed her first degree – a double major in mathematics and computer science – when she was just 17 and went on to become a distinguished Professor at Stanford University in California. But before long she’d given up this comfortable academic position to create the biggest online education platform in the world. In 2018, she founded the drug discovery company Insitro hoping to create a space where data scientists and molecular biologists could work together as equals.
Daphne tells Jim Al-Khalili how a single question from her supervisor nudged her to use her considerable mathematical ability to do something useful and why she believes the time is right for artificial intelligence to discover new medicines. Producer: Anna Buckley
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Ever wondered what the world's wealthiest people did to get so ridiculously rich? |
| 0:05.5 | Our podcast Good Bad Billionaire takes one billionaire at a time and explains exactly how they made their money. |
| 0:11.9 | And then we decide if they are actually good, bad, or just plain wealthy. |
| 0:15.5 | So if you want to know if Rihanna is as much of a bad guy as she claims, |
| 0:19.2 | or what Jeff Bezos really did to become the first person in history to pocket $100 billion, |
| 0:24.6 | listen to Good Bad Billionaire with me, Simon Jack, and me, Zingsing. |
| 0:28.5 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.4 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:36.1 | Hello, I'm Jim Arkelele, and this is the Life Scientific. |
| 0:40.1 | The deal is I get to talk to some of the amazing men and women who are trying to understand our world |
| 0:45.7 | and to make it a better place. |
| 0:47.4 | And you get to find out what makes them get out of bed in the morning. |
| 0:50.9 | As you're probably aware, computers are a lot cleverer than they were even five years ago. |
| 0:56.4 | There's been a step change in artificial intelligence brought about by profound advances in machine learning. |
| 1:02.2 | That is, machines learning to solve problems without being told by humans how to solve them. |
| 1:08.8 | Image recognition, speech recognition, virtual personal assistance, and chat bots |
| 1:13.6 | are all just the beginning of the machine learning revolution. |
| 1:16.8 | Machines are figuring out for themselves unsupervised, |
| 1:20.3 | and they're even carrying out scientific research. |
| 1:23.3 | My guest on the Life Scientific today believes machine learning will soon discover new medical treatments. |
| 1:28.8 | An area of scientific research has actually been in decline year on year since the mid-20th century. |
| 1:34.9 | Daphne Kohler was a precociously clever child. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.