Episode Details

In this episode of The BioHub Podcast, Amber sits down with Nazli Azimi, Co-founder and CEO of Therna Biosciences.

Nazli has previously founded and scaled two biotech companies through to acquisition, and is now focused on building AI-driven platforms to design programmable RNA medicines.

In this conversation, we explore why many first-generation AI drug discovery companies struggled, and why grounding models in real biological questions and high-quality data is critical.

We also discuss what it means to “program” RNA medicines, from designing molecules with specific properties to controlling gene expression at the transcript level.

Nazli shares a real-world example of designing an RNA molecule for a pulmonary fibrosis patient in a matter of days, and what this could mean for the future of personalised therapies.

Where AI in drug discovery starts to move beyond hype and into reality.