a16z: How can you make the claim that software connects the dots? Because when I think of bio, I think of tissue and flesh; I don’t think of computation and algorithms. How do those two actually come together?
Vijay: Let’s take machine learning. You can now do so much with image recognition there. And a big part of medicine involves images. Sure, when you go to your doctor, a bit of listening happens, but most of it is really about analyzing your x-rays (radiology), examining your skin (dermatology), or looking at your eyes (ophthalmology).Of course, these doctors aren’t just using their eyes; they’re applying and honing decades of medical training to do the pattern recognition, which in many cases is very subtle and requires significant expertise. There’s going to be many examples like this where computation can do something beyond what a human being can. It’s not limited to just vision. Think of all the inputs that humans take in with their senses; each of those are amenable to machine learning and deep learning: Listening with a stethoscope. Smelling something. And so on.In many cases, algorithms can do better than humans. Just as computer vision has had a huge impact in non-medical areas, it’s now getting to the point where it can set a new gold standard. If the gold standard in radiology is to predict what radiologists would do, computers can go beyond that. In radiation oncology for example the gold standard would be to predict the biopsy results … without having to actually put the patient through one.