Victor Debbas

Founder of MyDNABank. Building the consent and ownership layer for genomic data, giving individuals control over how their DNA 🧬 is used.

[Victor Debbas @VictorDebbas]

If a DNA test flagged a risk for my child, I’d ask: how common is this change in people with similar ancestry?

A study of 1,070 Saudi newborns found some variants flagged as disease-causing were more common locally than databases suggested.

https://t.co/7vVjrTQzZH

[MyDNABank.io @mydnabank]

People are more willing to share genetic data for research when they understand exactly how it'll be used and know they can change their mind.

Trust isn't the soft part of genomic research, it determines whether the data exists at all.

Visit: https://t.co/kwPLKzMYl2

[BioTender @Junioryu136689]

Claude Mythos 5.2 is taking on a new challenge in AI for Biology: predicting entire viral capsids.

Rather than building a new protein-folding model, Claude autonomously orchestrated two specialized models — OpenFold3-preview2 and ESMFold2 — to predict overlapping groups of capsid chains and reconstruct the whole structure using symmetry.

Results: 28 of 34 capsids accurately modeled in Anthropic's internal tests.

The bigger story isn't just protein structure prediction. It's a general-purpose AI agent figuring out how to combine existing scientific tools to solve problems that are difficult to tackle with any single model.

From protein folding to whole-virus architecture, AI agents are opening up new possibilities for biological research and gene therapy.

#AIforScience #AIforBiology #ProteinDesign #GeneTherapy

[Victor Debbas @VictorDebbas]

I looked into Abu Dhabi’s 950,000-genome announcement.

My takeaway: assess the research programme alongside the dataset.

My checklist:
• Relevant data
• Access rules
• Named research partners
• Defined programme

https://t.co/bRQ42WfPog

[Victor Debbas @VictorDebbas]

My @ArabLab notes made perfect sense last week.

Today I’m staring at “send details.”

Details of what, Victor?

My follow-up checklist:
• What we discussed
• What I promised
• Who acts next
• By when

Write those four down before leaving the stand.

[Victor Debbas @VictorDebbas]

Another week another show.

This week we have @ArabLab in Dubai. Just 3 days but should be quite hectic as usual.

I believe that my first show was probably in 1998. It’s gone a long way since then.

[BioTender @Junioryu136689]

🧬 AI Biology — Big Tech Weekly | Oct 19–25
Five tech giants, five fronts in AI biology:

🔬 Google — Autonomous wet labs: https://t.co/thN2wer6dU

🧠 OpenAI — Thousands of agents analyze millions of brain cells: https://t.co/bv5TzkYJtd

💊 OpenAI — Acquires Orchestra Bio: https://t.co/hWEEFgaDO0

🧬 Microsoft — BioEmu-2: https://t.co/EIGCkQ8cOA

🧪 Anthropic — Life sciences research collaboration: https://t.co/wOO1e9RRb8

🧫 NVIDIA — RFD4-Proteina & BioNeMo: https://t.co/N2lvOtrmTQ

The competition is moving beyond models toward biological reasoning, experimental feedback, protein design, and drug development workflows.

BioTender | Bridging AI and Biology

#AIBiology #AIforScience #DrugDiscovery

[ASHG @GeneticsSociety]

At #ASHG26, today we recognize Wendy Chung, MD, PhD, whose work continues to bridge scientific discovery and clinical impact.
Her groundbreaking work in genomic medicine has advanced gene discovery, genetic diagnosis, and patient care, helping transform lives around the world.

[BioTender @Junioryu136689]

🧬 Anthropic is inviting life sciences researchers to collaborate directly with its team.

The Guest Investigator Program offers 8–12 weeks of joint research, with access to Claude, AI agents, and support from Anthropic researchers.

🔗 https://t.co/uV0q2dRb9q

[Victor Debbas @VictorDebbas]

Let’s connect!

[Victor Debbas @VictorDebbas]

Things you see at @WetexDubai when all you are here for is water 💧!

Great show!

[Victor Debbas @VictorDebbas]

Heading to Abu Dhabi’s @FutureHealthAD with Dr Peter Loizou, @mydnabank Chief Medical Officer.

DNA sequencing is advancing. But are we helping people understand their results and make better health decisions?

Looking forward to conversations on longevity, consent and precision medicine.

[Victor Debbas @VictorDebbas]

Clean water 💧 is a right for everyone, wherever they live. You can consider this as my “side hustle”!

I’m more determined to keep pushing for clean water in rural communities.

• Practical water testing
• Operator training
• Reliable supplies
• Ongoing support

The commitment continues…..

[Victor Debbas @VictorDebbas]

Europe business travel is certainly different!

[BioTender @Junioryu136689]

BREAKING: Nobel laureate David Baker’s team just published TWO Nature papers in one day!

AI-designed proteases from scratch:

🧬 Cysteine proteases: 19% success rate, functional in mammalian cells.

🧬 Metalloproteases: 36% success rate, with over 10 BILLION-fold catalytic acceleration vs. the uncatalyzed reaction.

From predicting protein structures to designing catalytic function.

📄 Nature papers:

https://t.co/tURwbve5kT

https://t.co/igz434xxv0

[Nextflow @nextflowio]

Nextflow 26.10 is here! 🚀 Static typing is now stable, and a year of language work comes together to make your pipelines composable, reusable building blocks that you (or your AI agent) can verify before a single task runs.🧵https://t.co/Uf54cZbzoi

[Victor Debbas @VictorDebbas]

Clinical trial recruitment came up repeatedly in my conversations in Basel.

Hospitals overestimate eligible patients. Records are fragmented. Screening is slow.

Pharma spends millions trying to find patients whose data often already exists.

Is the real problem recruitment or access to reliable data?

https://t.co/PNEd6T2xhE

[Nextflow @nextflowio]

Introducing Agentic Nextflow: AI agents as steps inside your pipeline 🤖 Agent steps get the same guarantees as every other step: reproducible, portable and scalable. One engine for deterministic and agentic compute.📗Read the blog: https://t.co/iygeJ8XODs #NextflowSummit

[Victor Debbas @VictorDebbas]

Two children avoided invasive procedures after rapid genomic testing identified non-cancerous conditions.

In a 54-child study, reports averaged 3 days versus 42.

As a parent, faster answers matter.

What delays results most?

https://t.co/qNcV7y5yCP