2:45 – 3:45 pm

Category: Biomed

Bearing Witness to the Singularity: Trends at the Cutting Edge of Biomedical Innovation

The singularity in medicine is well underway. On a daily basis, biotech start-ups exit stealth mode and reveal their technologies, each more revolutionary than the last. Much of it sounds like science fiction; AIs that can look at a tumor’s genome and tell what therapies will work best, nanoparticles that silence autoimmune diseases, a single therapeutic that corrects a mutation underlying thousands of diseases, and a visible light wavelength that kills harmful bacteria (while keeping beneficial bacteria alive) are only a few of the crazy things we’ve come across in the last year at Microverse Studios. Strong themes have emerged, with ever-evolving machine intelligence and an ever-deepening understanding of the complex universe of gene expression at the forefront. I will present a TED-style talk to share the most intriguing revelations we’ve come across in the last two years.

Session Takeaways:

1. Illustrators at large will get a sense of where technologies are heading in areas that will impact the way medicine as a whole takes shape over the next five years.
2. Illustrators and animators will be provided with a cross-section of the for-profit biotech and pharmaceutical industries’ current topics of interest, which will be of use as those artists look for new clients.
3. Illustrators and animators serving or seeking to serve these fields will be provided with an idea of what skills and knowledge are increasingly in demand.

Watching the line blur between science and magic is tremendously entertaining.