Smart Biotech Scientist | The CMC and Bioprocessing Podcast for Process Development and Manufacturing Leaders
The go-to CMC and biomanufacturing podcast for bioprocess development scientists and CMC leaders scaling biologics into regulatory-ready therapies with less trial and error.
Practical, execution-focused, and strategic guidance on CMC development, tech transfer, scale-up, GMP readiness, CDMO partnerships, and manufacturing economics for biologics, cell and gene therapies, cultivated meat, and biomaterials.
Hosted by Dr. David Brühlmann, CMC strategist, former Bioprocess Innovation Manager at Merck, PhD in glycoengineering, and close to 20 years of biomanufacturing experience. Smart Biotech Scientist delivers actionable insights for the people doing the hard work of turning promising molecules into scalable, regulatory-ready therapies.
This podcast is for you if:
- You are a process development scientist or CMC lead managing a technology transfer, scale-up, or CDMO partnership
- You are a biologics developer working on upstream or downstream process development, cell culture optimization, or GMP manufacturing readiness
- You are a biotech founder preparing for an IND filing or Series A fundraise, and need a CMC strategy that holds up under investor and regulatory scrutiny
- You are building or advising an early-stage biopharma team and need to make smart manufacturing decisions with limited resources
What you will learn:
CMC strategy and regulatory planning, bioprocess scale-up from lab to clinical and commercial manufacturing, cell culture process development and media optimization, technology transfer best practices, CDMO selection and partnership management, hybrid modeling, manufacturing economics, continuous manufacturing, digitization, and Industry 4.0 in biopharma.
Top 10 life sciences podcast with 200+ episodes and guests from Merck, FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific, Cytiva, KBI Biopharma, Eppendorf, and biotech innovators worldwide.
New episodes released weekly. Subscribe and join 400+ biotech leaders already using these insights to accelerate development, reduce manufacturing costs, and de-risk scale-up.
Next Steps:
Visit the Website: https://smartbiotechscientist.com
Email us: hello@bruehlmann-consulting.com
Smart Biotech Scientist | The CMC and Bioprocessing Podcast for Process Development and Manufacturing Leaders
220: From 10,000 Structures to 1.8 Billion Interactions: Breaking the Data Bottleneck to Engineer Efficacious Therapeutics with Troy Lionberger - Part 2
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The biotech industry stands on the verge of a radical transformation thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). But even the most sophisticated algorithms are only as smart as the data feeding them.
David Brühlmann sits down with Troy Lionberger, Chief Business Officer at A-Alpha Bio, whose team has quietly shattered the data ceiling by measuring and curating more than 1.8 billion protein interactions. Troy Lionberger brings an insider’s perspective from the frontlines of machine learning-powered drug discovery. From partnering with leading biotechs to redesigning classic antibodies for previously “impossible” targets, Troy’s work pushes the edges of what’s tractable in biologic therapeutics.
What you'll hear in this episode:
- Limitations of public data sources like the Protein Data Bank and their impact on current protein engineering approaches (03:11)
- Why combining energetic (ΔG) and structural data matters for building predictive protein engineering models (05:43)
- A-Alpha Bio’s approach to generating 1.8 billion protein interaction measurements for machine learning—what this enables today and what’s possible next (06:30)
- Examples of how A-Alpha Bio’s platform solves challenging therapeutic problems, such as optimizing molecules for 800+ HIV variants and engineering dual-specific antibodies (07:36)
- The ongoing debate: What capabilities should biotech companies keep in-house, and what works best outsourced to service providers? (09:59)
- The potential of synthetic epitopes as vital tools for training models beyond the Protein Data Bank—introducing the Synthetic Epitope Atlas (12:09)
- Key takeaways for scientists: the importance of diligence amidst rapidly evolving AI claims, and advice for accelerating R&D with the right data (14:57)
Wondering how to move protein therapeutics from “interesting” to “impactful” without waiting for years of crystal structures? Listen in to learn how you can harness next-gen machine learning tools and custom datasets for your development projects.
Connect with Troy Lionberger:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/troylionberger
A-Alpha Bio website: www.aalphabio.com
Next step:
Need fast CMC guidance? → Get rapid CMC decision support here