Tim DraperFounder and Managing Partne, Draper Associate · I back the ideas that look crazy first

🧬 Imagine a world where your doctor sends a sample... and AI customizes your treatment

3 Apr 2025 · 1 min

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1:22

In this panel Q&A, speakers explain how an AI‑enabled, personalized phage therapy for pulmonary infections would work from a patient’s perspective. A physician first determines eligibility and sends a sputum sample to the company (Tolka AI). The lab isolates the pathogenic bacteria from the sample, then screens and isolates bacteriophages that specifically target that pathogen. The process involves roughly 15‑20 laboratory and computational steps, which in academic settings currently take about six months and are costly. Tolka AI’s partner handles the bioinformatics, automation, and software engineering needed to accelerate and scale the workflow. The discussion also touches on practical concerns such as blood tests, sample logistics, and the patient’s experience, while acknowledging the challenges of time, cost, and implementation.

Chapters

How can I get this particular treatment? How is it going to be like reaching the normal people?
Well—
It's going to be pretty difficult, right?
Does she have to do a blood test or something and then send it to you and then you send a drug or what happens?
Your physician would decide that you would be a good candidate for this and they would send a sample. For pulmonary infections, the lung infections, we're looking at a sputum sample where you cough and spit in a cup. They would send that to us, we would isolate the target pathogen, and then we would isolate the phages to kill that target pathogen specifically for you.
So what is the process? Is that it? You spit into a cup, send it to Tolka AI?
There's about, you know, 15, 20 steps in between us receiving the sample and the drug being ready for use. That is why it's taken on average 6 months in academia and cost tremendous amount of money. What about your partner?
He hasn't said anything about it.
I think that was great. He kind of put me on the spot when he said that I didn't say almost anything. It was a bit of a last-minute decision to have me present together with Johan, so yeah.
Have you given him the injection? He has said no thanks, let you do it.
So he's doing our bioinformatics, our automation, and software engineering.