Scientific developments play a big role in technological and societal advancements, whether it’s cultured meat, milk that doesn’t come from cows, new drugs and vaccines, and innovative climate solutions to name a few. only a few. Most of these developments would not be possible without other technological tools. But scientists often find themselves with mountains of data and don’t know what to do with it. This is where the new Israeli startup BioRaptor wants to come into the picture.
Bioraptor develops tools for the field of synthetic biology, where biology and other technologies come together to produce new products that can truly change the way we live. But the R&D processes of companies in this field leave huge amounts of data unused and therefore slow down the development process. But using BioRaptor’s system, maybe that will change. The development of BioRaptor can take data, analyze it, decipher it and, with the help of AI, also provide information that will allow scientists to advance their research and development processes. “We believe that to be successful, scientists and engineers must be equipped with tools they can use themselves. Only by making deep knowledge accessible to scientists will it be possible to move forward quickly. and turn what might today be considered science fiction into reality,” says Yaron David, co-founder and CTO of Bioraptor, a neuroscience PhD turned software engineer.
According to him, the conditions necessary for optimal production of products such as transgenic steak or cow-free milk are simply unknown. To find out what the optimal conditions are, scientists are busy with long experiments. But Bioraptor instead wants to guide them using artificial intelligence: “One way is to use sensors based on artificial intelligence. We use sensors that have been around for decades and by learning the conditions, create a real-time image of what’s going on inside the organism. This basically allows scientists to have a new way to look at what’s going on inside the organism and predict what will cause it to grow or express more product.
Find their way back to each other
David met his co-founder, Uri Zakin (CEO) when they together founded the development center Emerge Clinical Solutions, which developed NLP-based products to help doctors read information from patients’ personal records and to make them more accessible. The two parted ways for different jobs – one at Drivenets and the other at Assured Allies, but eventually reunited some time later. David explained how they decided to focus on the world of biology by meeting with several companies in the field to try to understand what solutions they were looking for. “After a few months, we noticed a recurring problem… Luckily, we knew we had an advantage since we could bring the knowledge we had accumulated from our past and help all these scientists and companies; we knew we could help them. build a product that really improves the profit line.”
Zakin says he was surprised to discover how few tools there are for scientists: “Along the way, we’ve discovered that the people who produce tomorrow’s drugs, futuristic food and solutions to global warming are those who receive the fewest tools for machine learning and access to complex data. This is an opportunity for me, as a software engineer, to create a true revolution in an industry that makes the world a better place.” Last Friday (Nov. 25), Bioraptor also announced a $3 million fundraising round. led by lool Ventures and CPT Capital, with participation from FoodHack and several interesting entrepreneurs such as Danny Grander (of Snyk), Yuval Weisglass (of TowerSec and Ansa), and Saar Dickman (of Dynamic Infrastructure and TowerSec). expand the capabilities of its platform, while expanding its relevant areas from imaging, fermentation and cell cultures to genetics.
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