Trends from the Trenches

At last month’s Bio-IT World Conference & Expo, Eleanor Howe, founder and CEO of Diamond Age Data Science, presented the Trends with the Trenches session based on gathered input from colleagues, clients, and advisors across the life sciences field. Coding agents were the central topic—how they’re speeding up software development, open source maintenance, and analysis workflows while also shift...

Your AI plan can’t outrun your data. Adam Marko, life science field CTO at Hammerspace, joins the podcast to unpack the problem almost every biotech, pharma, and biomedical research group runs into: unstructured data that are siloed, fragmented, and scattered across storage systems, sites, and clouds. With host Jessica StLouis, they talk through what “data orchestration” means when building an AI-...

AI is now good enough to change how computational biology teams actually work, but most companies are still adopting it like it’s 2023. Sonia Timberlake, R&D strategy consultant for Timberlake & Maclsaac Biopharma Consulting, speaks with host Eleanor Howe about what’s real: agentic coding, high-throughput data workflows, and the practical limits that still slow teams down. Timberlake digs...

Joining Trends from the Trenches is Allissa Dillman, founder and CEO of BioData Sage, and LaFrancis Gibson, manager for health promotion at ORAU, who discuss this year’s Bio-IT World Conference & Expo Hackathon sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund Data Ecosystem (CFDE) Training Center. With host Allison Proffitt, they discuss which tools and datasets from CFDE will...

Computing resources are no longer just pieces of tech—they're scientific instruments. Moffitt Cancer Center’s Jarett DeAngelis, director of scientific information technology, and Shane Corder, senior HPC engineer, join cohost Jessica StLouis, senior scientific consultant at BioTeam, to discuss new approaches changing access to HPC resources and how platforms like Open OnDemand are simplifying...

As the new year settles in, the industry is anticipating new innovative biotech and learning from past failures. John Keilty, venture partner at Third Rock Ventures, discusses the current trends he sees in biopharma investment, separating the hype from reality of AI (and if the AI bubble will eventually pop), other ventures that should be considered, and how new companies are being built today com...

Rare diseases do not receive enough attention for the impact they have on patients and their families. This is what AlphaRose’s founder and CEO Casey McPherson learned after his daughter was diagnosed with a rare condition. In a conversation with host Ari Berman, McPherson shares how he switched from music to founding his own pharmaceutical company, what technologies AlphaRose is developing, and h...

David Hewlett, founder of Tech Bandits, makes learning fun and creates an environment where children—the future generation of scientists—can feel comfortable with curiosity. With host Ari Berman, Hewlett delves into his acting career, which consists of a wide range of scientist roles, and the origins of Tech Bandits. He also shares his thoughts on how science needs to be communicated better (and w...

In this special transition episode of Trends from the Trenches, Ari Berman, CEO of BioTeam, takes the mic as the new host of the Trends from the Trenches podcast and speaks with founding host Stan Gloss, co-founder of BioTeam. During their conversation, they cover Stan’s journey as an entrepreneur, including the valuable lessons learned along the way, words of wisdom for people on similar paths, a...

In the first Trends from the Trenches episode of 2025, host Stan Gloss and Dirk Petersen, Director of Supercomputing Center at Oregon State University, talk about the state and role of HPCs in a world that’s focused on AI. Petersen offers his thoughts and insights on working with AI teams, how to converge the traditional HPC user with the AI user, the “Wild West” of AI infrastructure and computing...

In this episode of Trends from the Trenches, host Stan Gloss and Renee Iacona, vice president of Oncology Biometrics, Oncology R&D at AstraZeneca, discuss the process of matching patients with the right treatments, data management (particularly around oncology), and the value of knowledge graphs. Iacona mentions the importance of having scientists who understand AI/ML and AI/ML experts who und...

In this episode of Trends from the Trenches, host Stan Gloss discusses high-performance computing and its progress over the years with Rémy Evard, chief digital officer and head of technology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). They delve into the impact of cloud technology, the rapid development of AI (and the overexcitement around it), and the current industry-wide issue of maintain...

In this episode of Trends from the Trenches, host Stan Gloss speaks with industry veteran Tom Plasterer, managing director of life sciences innovation at XponentL Data. Plasterer shares his journey of how he became an industry leader, how his time at BG Medicine (then known as Beyond Genomics) helped him with his time at AstraZeneca, what graph technology is and its benefits, and why he returned t...

In this episode of Trends from the Trenches, host Stan Gloss speaks with Howard Jacob, vice president of genomics research at AbbVie. They discuss Jacob’s beginnings at AbbVie, data siloing and “my data vs. our data” issues, and the role of funding in plan execution and leadership support. Jacob also delves into the origins of the AbbVie R&D Convergence Hub (ARCH—winner of a 2023 Bio-IT World...

Tune into this month’s episode of Trends from the Trenches, where host Stan Gloss and Ruth Marinshaw, CTO of Research Computing at Stanford University, talk about the accomplishments and challenges of supporting a diverse population of researchers in academia. Marinshaw also delves into building a reliable and trustworthy service, computational infrastructure as an essential tool for the lab, what...

In this special episode of the Trends from the Trenches podcast, listen in on the Trends from the Trenches session at this year’s Bio-IT World Conference & Expo. Ari Berman, PhD, CEO of BioTeam, delivers a candid talk about the technologies driving data-intensive science, from the most worthwhile to the most overhyped to the most relevant. Learn what’s happening now with computing, storage, da...

In this month’s episode of Trends from the Trenches, host Stan Gloss speaks with Joseph La Barge. La Barge trained as an attorney but has spent most of his career building biotech businesses and securing funding. He shepherded Spark Therapeutics through its acquisition by Roche and has since joined Apertura Gene Therapy as CEO. He and Stan talk about the entrepreneurship journey, gene expression a...

Change can be scary, but it can also bring new opportunities and lead to growth and innovation. In this episode of Trends from the Trenches , host Stan Gloss from BioTeam and Adama Ibrahim, VP of Digital Strategy & Change Management at Novo Nordisk, delve into a conversation about humanity’s natural resistance to change, why it is important to overcome that resistance, and how change is the ke...

It’s no secret that the industry is drowning in data. That’s why data management strategies are needed now more than ever to speed up discoveries and bring new solutions to the market. In this episode of Trends from the Trenches , host Stan Gloss discusses data management strategies with Becky Upton, Ph. D., President of Pistoia Alliance. Dr. Upton shares how her organization is maximizing data ma...

Going from one field to the next can be a tricky thing to navigate. In this episode of Trends from the Trenches, host Stan Gloss speaks with Tom Miller, Co-Founder and CEO of Iambic Therapeutics, about his journey from academia as a professor at the California Institute of Technology to getting B-Round funding as the CEO of his own start-up. Miller discusses why he started his company, what inspir...

In this episode of Trends from the Trenches, host Stan Gloss speaks with Heidi Rehm, PhD, Chair Elect of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), about data sharing policies and standards that can advance both genomics and health. Rehm discusses the benefits of data sharing on a global scale, how organizations can reduce friction of people’s usage and adoption of standards, and success...

In the latest episode of the Trends from the Trenches podcast, host Stan Gloss and Bryn Roberts, PhD, Global Head of Data & Analytics at Roche Information Solutions explore the Why and the How behind AI. What used to be “happily left a bit in the background” is now main stage thanks to everyone’s new interest in ChatGPT. Roberts recommends applying pharma’s Target Product Profiles (TPPs) to AI...

After the “magical moment of hope” when the first human genome was sequenced, Jeanne Kehren switched from veterinary medicine to the pharmaceutical industry. Today, she is the SVP of Digital & Commercial Innovation and CIO at Bayer Pharmaceuticals and works in various areas, including sustainability, digital health, and digital transformation. In this episode of Trends from the Trenches, host...

A few years ago, artificial intelligence was in its developmental stages. Today, it is widely used by various industries and several companies are exploring new ways to utilize its tremendous potential. In this episode of Trends from the Trenches, Stan Gloss speaks with Jarrod Anderson, Senior Director of Artificial Intelligence at ADM, who discusses prioritizing projects, selecting the best team...

In this episode of Trends from the Trenches, Stan Gloss speaks with Efosa Ojomo, director of the Global Prosperity Group at the Clayton Christensen Institute (CCI) and coauthor of The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty , about the parallels between consumption economy and life sciences research. Ojomo discusses how relying on data metrics does not necessarily provid...