Podcast | April 3, 2025
“Biology is Knowable”: Data in Biotech Interview with Dr. Jonathan Usuka
“What we do is deep molecular characterization of disease. We’re able to detect a broad number of metabolites and proteins from a single sample, in numbers exceeding 10,000 per sample. And then we put that data together with real-world data – patient data, phenotypic data – to get a much better understanding of the disease state of the patient. We can see how underlying demographic influences, different exposures patients might have to food, other drugs, etcetera, or even things as simple as weight or diet or exercise influence disease trajectories and outcomes. So we can really break out patient response across a continuum of time and build cohorts to compare different responses to get a much better idea of what therapy or intervention is going to work for a patient.”
Sapient’s CEO, Dr. Jonathan Usuka, joins the Data in Biotech podcast and host Ross Katz for an data-centric discussion on the power of multimodal longitudinal data to improve therapeutic development and patient outcomes.
The theme of the conversation centered on the idea that “biology is knowable” and how longitudinal datasets of deeply profiled individuals are a critical part to unlocking novel disease and drug response insights. Deep understanding of dynamic disease processes, and how individual patient journeys influence outcomes, is not possible using only static, one-time measures.
Dr. Usuka and Ross discuss how Sapient has built its own multimodal longitudinal data asset, comprising broad multi-omics measures paired with real-world data across >56,000 individuals, that enables exploration of changing signatures of health to subtype disease, stratify patients, and enable precision diagnostics.
They also talk through examples of how such deep phenotyping can be used to derive insights into medication adherence, the impact of behavioral factors (e.g., exercise, stress, drinking) on disease progression and/or therapeutic response in a patient population, therapeutic side effects, and much more.
Listen above or by searching “Data in Biotech” on your favorite podcast platform!
