Dennis Özcelik
Dennis Özcelik is a trained biochemist who has spent many years in academic and applied research in the areas of (bio)pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences. Over the past five years, he has been working in the industry as a project and team lead in drug discovery and development. In this role, he has also explored and evaluated AI applications, albeit with varying degrees of success. Early next year, he will transition back to academia, taking up a professorship in Freising (Munich area).
Session
Did you ever wonder where all the drugs, which you can get at a pharmacy, come from? Who makes them, and how? Well, there is no easy answer, because the process of drug discovery and development is a very complex, expensive, and challenging journey, riddled with many risks and failures. This holds true for all types of drugs, from a simple pill to an mRNA vaccine or a gene therapy. Today, scientists support this process with a variety of AI applications, cutting-edge technologies, automation, and a huge amount of data. But can the race for new medicines and cures succeed only through more technology, or do we need to rethink the entire process? Let’s take a look at how the drug discovery and development process has worked so far, and how this entire process is changing – for better or worse.