An­dreessen Horowitz backs a new mol­e­cule builder from UCLA equipped with the lat­est in con­ver­gence tech. And he’s aim­ing big

Sri Ko­suri has spent years at a sci­en­tif­ic cross­roads, watch­ing the rapid­ly ac­cel­er­at­ing work on syn­thet­ic bi­ol­o­gy, big da­ta and ge­nomics. The MIT grad spent time work­ing as a staff sci­en­tist with George Church at the Wyss In­sti­tute. And he kept at it as a pro­fes­sor in chem­istry at UCLA.

Now, Ko­suri’s tak­en a leave of ab­sence af­ter bag­ging a $30 mil­lion in­vest­ment from An­dreessen Horowitz to see if he can take these con­ver­gent tech­nolo­gies in polyphar­ma­col­o­gy and cre­ate a pow­er­ful new ma­chine for drug dis­cov­ery. The up­start biotech is called Oc­tant. And Ko­suri’s shoot­ing for some­thing ground­break­ing in the tough­est fields he can find.

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