I am interested in engagement with VALIANT because of both my graduate teaching and research interests.
1. Teaching. Myself and Madhvi Venkatesh (IGP director, VU SOM) developed and implemented an LLM training module for biomedical scientists. While there are many LLM trainings and classes out there they tend to be about LLMs themselves or hyperfocused on sub-specialties of LLM functions. In contrast, we have developed a comprehensive module that teaches biomedical graduate students how to effectively integrate LLMs into their research and scholarships such that they harness benefits while mitigating risks. We have also developed a pedagogical strategy that can make any graduate program LLM-ready on day 1. We presented this at the AAMC GREAT in Sept 2025 and were the only presentation on this topic. To our knowledge we are the only biomedical graduate program in the US that offers something like this. We wish to extend and expand this interdisciplinary teaching through integration and collaboration with VALIANT.
2. My lab studies biochemistry of DNA replication and DNA repair to understand mechanisms of environmental toxicology, tumor suppression, and cancer therapy. We have traditionally been an exclusively wet lab biochemistry group but are trying to pivot to incorporate AI heavily into what we do:
i. We seek to leverage the text mining ability of LLMs to generate comprehensive networks of physical and functional interactions between proteins. Our goal here is to identify ‘anomalous results’ (Kuhn, 1962) such that we can intentionally generate paradigm-shifting data.
ii. We want to leverage the ability of alphafold and related systems to study protein-protein interaction networks. Our goal is to gain a better understanding of network topologies so we can better manipulate biological systems towards desired outcomes. For example, ‘synthetic lethal’ interactions between two proteins are well validated anti-cancer approaches. We believe that ‘synthetic lethality’ is the n=2 special case of a generalizable phenomenon and by understanding protein networks we can rapidly advance precision medicine and new therapeutic approaches.
As a traditional biochemistry lab we do not have a deep bench of computational expertise and thus integration with other disciplines is crucial to advance our research goals. I believe this experimental work aligns well with VALIANT’s mission and goals.