Ep#026: Bringing Protein Biomarkers Closer to Clinics with Dr. Sophia Doll

Personalized Medicine Podcast

In this episode, we return to our beloved field of proteomics. This time we focus on answering a question on how automation and AI can improve biomarker discovery and ultimately benefit patients. Our guest is Dr. Sophia Doll, co-founder of OmicEra Diagnostics, one of the most exciting startups in the field of proteomics today.
Sophia did her Ph.D. at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich where she studied translational protein biomarkers of cancer in the lab of Mathias Mann. She conducted part of her graduate research at the University of California in San Francisco and worked for Genentech where she analyzed epigenetic and proteomic alterations in lymphoma. In 2019 Sophia started OmicEra Diagnostics and together with her co-founders they aim at maximizing insights that we can obtain from analyzing various biological samples.
Together with Sophia, we discussed:
◦ Sophia’s motivation behind starting OmicEra Diagnostics
◦ Rise of open-source tools for analysis of omic data
◦ Role of protein biomarkers in diagnostics of the future
◦ Technological advancement in mass spec based proteomics
◦ Struggles in biomarker discovery
◦ How proteomics can help us understand the severity of COVID
◦ The upcoming developments in the field of mass spec-based proteomics
◦ Sophia’s advice to young biotech founders
Make sure to download the full show notes with our guest's bio, links to their most notable work, and our recommendations for further reads on the topic of the episode at pmedcast.com