Upgrade 2026: Research to Reality
Panel: AI in Life Sciences with Shweta Maniar, Google Cloud
Moderator:
Sezin Palmer, Managing Director, AI Industry Solutions Leader, NTT DATA, Inc.
Summary
Join Shweta Maniar, Global Strategy and Market Leader for Life Sciences at Google Cloud, and moderator Sezin Palmer of NTT DATA, for an in-depth discussion on bridging the gap between scientific research and practical reality. This panel explores how advanced AI models are fundamentally changing the healthcare landscape, accelerating discoveries, and transforming the daily roles of researchers and clinicians.
Scaling DeepMind Innovations: Learn how Google Cloud is working to commercialize breakthrough tools like AlphaFold and AI Co-Scientist. Maniar shares a powerful example of the AI hypothesis generator synthesizing a decade’s worth of lab data in just hours to uncover novel research pathways.
The Shift to “Self-Driving Labs”: Discover how the role of the researcher is evolving from hands-on pipetting to orchestrating AI collaborators, moving the industry toward a future of autonomous, self-driving laboratories.
Building Trust Through Administrative Efficiency: For healthcare organizations looking to adopt AI, Maniar advises starting with back-office and administrative efficiencies. This builds crucial organizational trust before scaling into clinical decision-making or trial operations.
A New Approach to Adoption: When introducing disruptive technology, leaders should stop wasting energy trying to convince the “naysayers”. Instead, focus on supporting the enthusiastic early adopters who will act as internal “sparks” to inspire the rest of the organization.
Traceability for Regulatory Success: Understand the critical need for building traceability and responsible AI principles directly into project workflows from day one, ensuring data is ready for strict regulatory submissions.