AI Summary
→ WHAT IT COVERS Jared Bauer, cofounder and CEO of SeekLabs, details how personal loss drove him to build an AI-powered infectious disease company, covering the BioSeqr platform mapping 145 diseases across 3 billion data points, a CRISPR therapeutic that raised African swine fever survival from 0% to 60%, and a three-part commercialization strategy. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Company Turnaround Framework:** Identify failing companies by finding distressed investors, acquire institutional knowledge holders immediately by offering equity stakes, and reframe regulatory agencies as partners rather than adversaries. At BurnFree, this approach expanded distribution from a struggling base to 58 countries across four years before a successful 2016 exit to a larger competitor. - **Culture-First Hiring:** Every candidate at SeekLabs, regardless of seniority, answers the same four questions focused entirely on worldview and personal ambition rather than technical qualifications. Candidates who fail the culture screen are rejected regardless of resume strength. SeekLabs also provides five paid volunteer days annually to reinforce principle-based culture over rule-based compliance. - **AI Target Discovery Speed:** SeekLabs' BioSeqr system maps 145 infectious diseases across 69,000+ influenza strains and roughly 3 billion data points, cross-referenced against 170,000 organisms to eliminate off-target risks. What previously required four years of manual target identification for a single virus can now be completed within hours, enabling rapid therapeutic and diagnostic development across multiple pathogens simultaneously. - **CRISPR Viral Load Reduction vs. Gene Editing:** SeekLabs' PTAP platform uses CRISPR not to edit host genes but to chop up and eliminate viral DNA and RNA directly, lowering viral load so the immune system can respond faster. In African swine fever trials, surviving animals developed natural antibodies and achieved 100% survival upon rechallenge without receiving a second therapeutic dose. - **Platform Company Focus Discipline:** Platform biotechs frequently fail by attempting to pursue every possible application simultaneously. SeekLabs structures its pipeline into three distinct tracks: internally developed and commercialized programs, co-development or sponsored research partnerships with pharma and animal health companies, and direct licensing deals, ensuring capital and scientific resources concentrate on defined, data-supported programs rather than diffuse exploration. → NOTABLE MOMENT SeekLabs' African swine fever study began not as a commercial priority but as a controlled proof-of-concept: researchers deliberately chose a disease with a 100% animal mortality rate so that any survivors would provide unambiguous evidence that lowering viral load through CRISPR actually supports immune recovery. 💼 SPONSORS None detected 🏷️ CRISPR Therapeutics, AI Drug Discovery, Infectious Disease, Point-of-Care Diagnostics, Biotech Turnarounds