© 2022 ISOMORPHIC LABS
Isomorphic Labs was born in 2021 to apply AI and computational methods to drug discovery, and transform the way medicine helps and heals people.
We’re building on the AlphaFold breakthrough in active partnership with Google DeepMind, united together as members of the Alphabet family.
And that makes us different.
Because while we have the energy, agility and ambition of a fast-paced startup, we’ve got the capital, commitment and compute power of something much bigger. It expands the scope of our horizon and the scale of our ambition.
Meet some of the Isos who are guiding us as we grow.
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Demis is our founder and CEO. He is also the founder and CEO of DeepMind.
“I’ve always believed in the power and potential of advanced AI to enrich human life and change our world. The work we’re doing here will help to realise that promise, and ultimately improve the lives of millions of people dealing with disease. I’m proud to be leading this amazing team and look forward to the progress we’ll make together.”
A chess and programming prodigy, Demis is a computer scientist, neuroscientist and videogame designer. He founded the pioneering AI research company DeepMind in 2010, now part of Alphabet, which continues to produce landmark breakthroughs like AlphaFold in 2020 - a solution to the 50-year grand challenge of protein folding.
He designed and programmed the award-winning game Theme Park at the age of 17 and went on to graduate from Cambridge University and complete a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at University College London.
His research has been featured by the journal Science in their Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year four different times. Demis is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering.
In 2017, Demis was recognised as one of TIME’s “100 Most Influential People”, and in 2018, he received a CBE for services to science and technology.
Colin Murdoch was there at the very beginning of Isomorphic Labs. He (re)joins from Google DeepMind as our first President.
“I have always been fascinated with the ways that individuals, teams and businesses apply technological advances to better the world around them. I’m here to support and enable the incredible team at Iso as they connect their groundbreaking research with AI-ready problems in biotech and drug discovery that will go on to impact the lives of billions of people.”
Colin joined DeepMind in 2015 as its chief business officer. There, he worked closely with product teams and businesses across Google and Alphabet to help them grow and achieve their goals through the responsible implementation of cutting-edge AI.
It was also at DeepMind where Colin led the team considering the translation and application of DeepMind’s extraordinary AlphaFold breakthrough. That’s where Isomorphic Labs was born.
Colin brings a strategic leadership mindset to his role as President of Isomorphic Labs. He is responsible for the day to day operations of the company, and will execute on the CEO’s strategic vision alongside the senior leadership team.
Originally trained as an electronics and software engineer, Colin began his career in coding roles at Marconi and AVT Technologies, before joining Thomson Reuters and eventually becoming its head of business strategy. At the media giant, his focus was on building teams to tackle mission-critical, real-world problems. That same focus continued at private equity-backed Sporting Index Group, where he also took on new challenges as its commercial and operations director.
Miles is our Chief Scientific Officer. He has helped design 25 clinically evaluated drugs and is co-inventor of Kisqali® (Ribociclib), a marketed treatment for breast cancers.
“After more than 25 years working in drug discovery I can say that we get things wrong more times than we get them right. At Isomorphic Labs we are using everything we know in life sciences in order to make better predictions, improve decision-making and transform the medicine design process. I feel privileged to work with a team with the focus and passion to deliver on this vision.”
As Chief Scientific Officer at Sosei Heptares, Miles pioneered Structure-Based Drug Design for G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs). As Director of Chemistry at Astex Pharmaceuticals, he helped establish Fragment-Based Drug Design as a radical new approach to small molecule lead generation. He has also been a team leader at GlaxoSmithKline in medicinal chemistry and chemical technologies.
He is co-author of over 200 publications and patents and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2015, he was co-recipient of the RSC Malcolm Campbell Memorial Prize for the seminal contributions to GPCR drug discovery made by Sosei Heptares.
Miles has a degree in biological chemistry from Leicester University and a PhD in synthetic chemistry from Cambridge University.
Max is our Chief AI Officer, joining us from DeepMind. He has led breakthrough research in algorithms and methods using machine learning across multiple application domains.
“At Iso, we are so lucky to have the opportunity to focus the whole world of deep learning on one of the most important problems for humanity. As a team, we are going to get very creative, applying first-principles thinking and advancing all the state-of-the-art machine learning research we are developing as a research community towards this challenging problem.”
At DeepMind, Max led the Open-Ended Learning research team and pioneered numerous algorithms combining large-scale deep learning, reinforcement learning, and generative models to achieve world-leading results with AI.
Prior to that, Max was CEO and co-founder of Vision Factory, a company specialising in image recognition technology with deep learning. Vision Factory joined the Google family in 2014 to become part of DeepMind.
He completed his undergraduate degree in engineering science at the University of Oxford and his PhD with the Visual Geometry Group at the University of Oxford, where he developed deep learning algorithms for image understanding. He is widely published in journals and conferences, and his work features in textbooks.
Sarah is our General Counsel and Head of Business Operations. She brings a breadth of experience on legal and business matters from the biotechnology industry.
“AI holds the promise to revolutionize drug discovery and bring new classes of therapeutics to those in need. Delivering on this promise requires that we excel, both technically as well as in the business dimensions of drug creation. It is an honor to contribute my legal expertise to help achieve this ambitious vision.”
Sarah brings broad legal experience from the biotechnology industry to her role as General Counsel.
She was most recently Chief Legal Officer and interim Chief Business Officer at Absci, a generative AI drug creation company focused on biologics. She was previously General Counsel at Neuvogen and held roles specializing in intellectual property at Amgen, Onyx Pharmaceuticals and the World Intellectual Property Organization. She started her legal career in private practice.
Sarah earned dual undergraduate degrees in chemistry and metallurgical & materials engineering from South Dakota Mines, a PhD in materials science and engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, and her Juris Doctorate from DePaul University College of Law. She is a National Science Foundation Fellow and an inventor on various patents directed to nano-enabled therapeutics and drug delivery technologies.
Bev is our Chief People Officer, joining us from Google DeepMind. Bev knows what it takes to encourage innovation and enable progress at ambitious organisations like ours.
“AI is a deeply human field; a technology built by people, for people. The opportunity we have to reimagine drug discovery is a privilege we must rise to, and our approach to people and culture is critical to our success. We are assembling an incredible interdisciplinary team in a culture of curiosity, collaboration, innovation, creativity, responsibility and mutual care. This is how we’ll build an extraordinary organisation and unlock extraordinary scientific breakthroughs for humanity.”
Bev has been with Isomorphic Labs from the very beginning, first as a leader in our incubation stage, and then as interim COO. Bev played a key role in establishing our founding team and in creating our operational foundations. As Chief People Officer she is now focused on growing and developing our team, and optimising our innovative culture for the important work ahead.
Prior to her focus on building Iso, Bev held various roles at Google DeepMind including being the first People Director. There she built and developed DeepMind’s unique approach to people and culture, working closely with Demis to bring to life the vision of organisation needed to achieve such an ambitious mission.
Before DeepMind, Bev held a range of People and HR focused roles in sectors including media, publishing, not-for-profit and marketing. Her dedication to creating the conditions under which individuals and leaders can flourish has also seen her train as an executive coach accredited with the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. Bev holds an MSc in Human Resource Management and is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
John is our Vice President of Business Development. He brings deep experience building strategic partnerships, with PhD-level knowledge in molecular and computational biology.
“Isomorphic Labs has already established itself as an early leader in this emerging field of digital biology. I am delighted to be building creative partnerships within and across our industry to drive growth, accelerate progress and bring new medicines to patients. We can’t do this on our own - no one can. Transforming the health and wellbeing of millions of patients living with devastating disease will only be achieved through meaningful collaboration.”
John is a scientifically trained business development expert. He has both passion for and skill in distilling complex scientific and clinical concepts into clear and groundbreaking strategic partnerships.
He joins us from a role as Senior Vice President and Head of Business Development, Alliance Management and New Product Development at siRNA focused biotech Silence Therapeutics. Prior to that he was a Senior Business Development Manager at global speciality pharmaceutical company Advanz Pharma. He has also worked to unlock commercial possibilities at Novasecta, Navigant and Antisoma.
He has led negotiations and successfully launched multiple partnerships, including deals which have been shortlisted for Scrip Awards' Best Partnership Alliance 2020 and finalist for LSX Leaders Lifestars Awards Deal of the Year 2019. He has also been published in the Journal of Biotechnology, Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, and Informa - In Vivo.
John earned his PhD in Biochemical Engineering at UCL and his MRes in Bioinformatics at University of York.
Sergei is our Chief Technology Officer. He brings over 20 years experience in engineering, machine learning, product, life science and medical research.
“Our success will be built upon a perfect interplay of deep understanding of science and medicine, cutting-edge machine learning algorithms, unique datasets, robust engineering and unrelenting product focus. We're bound by a common mission, to unlock the power of digital biology to improve human health. Together we make it possible.”
Before joining us, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at SOPHiA GENETICS, where he helped develop and run an AI-based molecular diagnostics and data-driven medicine platform operating in more than 70 countries.
Sergei has held senior roles at Amazon.com, where he launched the first Canadian software engineering centre; at BPS Inc., where he developed a best-in-class Governance, Risk, and Compliance platform; at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, where he led the Technical Working Group of the Pan Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Project, the world’s largest cancer data analysis initiative; and at EMBL where he developed a cloud-based scientific workflow framework.
Sergei has a degree in computer science and mathematics from the University of Toronto and a PhD in computer science from Heidelberg University, where he developed novel distributed algorithms for analysing cancer genomes.
Dr. Jennifer Doudna won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 for co-inventing the groundbreaking gene editing technology CRISPR. The technology is widely recognised as enabling a revolution in human and agricultural genomics research, thanks to its ability to add and remove genes in vivo with unprecedented ease and accuracy.
Dr. Doudna is the president and founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute – the leading group advancing genome engineering research to solve humanity’s greatest challenges. She is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair and Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes.
Dr. Doudna is also the co-founder and advisor to several companies supporting and developing innovative gene editing applications and leads the global conversation on the safe and ethical use and impact of CRISPR technology in society.
Sir David MacMillan won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2021 for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis, a precise new tool for molecular construction. His invention has had a great impact on pharmaceutical research, and is credited with making chemistry greener.
Sir David is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University, where he was also the chair of the Department of Chemistry from 2010 to 2015.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012, a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2013, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2018.
In 2022, he was knighted for services to chemistry and science.
Sir Paul Nurse won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of protein molecules that control the division of cells in 2001.
He is the Director and Chief Executive of the Francis Crick Institute, Chancellor of Bristol University and former President of the Royal Society, and has received over 70 honorary degrees and fellowships.
Sir Paul’s discoveries have helped explain how cells control their cycle of growth and division, as well as how errors in the cycle can lead to cancer and other diseases.
His contributions to cell biology and cancer research were recognised with a knighthood in 1999.
From 2000 to 2015, he advised UK Prime Ministers and their Cabinets as a member of the Council for Science and Technology, and from 2017 to 2021 was a Chief Scientific Advisor of the European Commission.
Sir Menelas (Mene) Pangalos was previously Executive Vice-President at AstraZeneca, where he led BioPharmaceutical research and development and the creation of the company’s new Global R&D Centre in Cambridge. In his thirteen years at AstraZeneca, Sir Mene championed an innovative, open approach to academic-industry collaborations, and pioneered a remarkable transformation of the company’s R&D productivity, resulting in success rates four-times higher than the industry average. He also led AstraZeneca’s R&D response to COVID-19, including partnering with Oxford University in the global development of a vaccine. The team was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society in 2023.
Sir Mene has received Honorary Doctorates from Glasgow University and Imperial College London, holds an Honorary Fellowship of the British Pharmacological Society, is a Fellow of The Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Royal Society of Biology. In 2019, Sir Mene was awarded a Knighthood for his services to UK science.
Dr. Venki Ramakrishnan won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2012 for his work on the structure and function of the ribosome. His discoveries have advanced our understanding of how the ribosome works and how antibiotics inhibit it, as well as how DNA is organised in cells.
After a long career in the USA, Venki has been a group leader at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge since 1999, and also served as President of the Royal Society from 2015-2020. He is a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina and EMBO, and a foreign member of the Indian National Science Academy.
He has received many honorary degrees and fellowships, and is a board member of The British Library. He was awarded a knighthood in 2012 and made a member of the Order of Merit in 2022.
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