Mining for Molecular Function from a Universe of Knowledge: Terpenes | AIFS AI Speaker Series

If you don't study biochemistry, you may know about terpenes from one of the many cannabis videos on this topic. Did you know that terpenes are also a key ingredient in essential oils, anticancer drugs, and the flavoring in your foods?
Dr. Justin Siegel explains his work using NLP and ML to create a public database of terpenes, one of the largest, most studied, and widely commercially-utilized classes of natural molecules.
Learn about the groundbreaking advances in biosciences that have already been achieved in the 21st century, and the exciting race to the finish line. In the last six months alone, about $2 billion of startup investment has been allocated to the last step, which will unlock biomolecular solutions to the world's biggest problems.
Dr. Siegel discusses the critical role of academia in this rapidly evolving ecosystem, developing talent, identifying knowledge gaps, and building foundational datasets to unlock new areas of exploration.
Dr. Siegel's work aims to illuminate approaches using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning for the isolation and utilization of high-value terpenes, expanding their footprint in the therapeutics, pesticides, flavors, and materials markets.
Read more: aifs.ucdavis.e...
FEATURED SPEAKER:
Justin Siegel, PhD, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry & Molecular Medicine and Faculty Director of the Innovation Institute for Food and Health (IIFH) at the University of California, Davis.
siegel.ucdavis...
----------
The AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems, or AIFS, was launched in 2020 to solve the world’s biggest challenges to crop and food production facing our planet: ensuring a sustainable, nutritious, efficient, and safe food supply while mitigating the impacts of a changing climate.
Given food’s fundamental role in human health and well-being, coupled with its far-reaching impacts on the national economy and environment, AIFS is developing open-source AI solutions across the food system for the good of our people, our planet and our society.
We bring together more than 40 researchers from six institutions: UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC-ANR), Cornell University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
This work is supported by AFRI Competitive Grant no. 2020-67021-32855/project accession no. 1024262 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Learn more at:
aifs.ucdavis.edu/