US-based Guyanese scientist recognised for pioneering AI-driven drug development
By Telesha Ramnarine
Dr Niven Narain can still remember that day in the hospital 35 years ago when he looked at the x-ray images belonging to his beloved grand-mother, Rukhminia Latchman, who was diagnosed with cancer. It was a devastating blow to him and his family, and although he had his mind set on pursuing a career in Computer Science, his grandmother’s death completely changed the course of his life.
He was just 13 years old at the time she died. It was intriguing to him the way cancer suddenly took over his grandmother and the effect it had on her body, causing her to die just a year after she was diagnosed. “When she was diagnosed, it had metastasised to her lungs; it was in her lymph nodes. I remember looking at the x-ray images in the hospital and just looking at her lungs and all these white spots on her lungs. Those are images that will be entrenched in my mind forever,” he expressed in an interview with Stabroek Weekend recently.
He constantly talked about her death and the cancer, so much so that his Guyanese biology teacher Hector Telford picked up on his interest and urged him to pay some more attention to the subject, since he was already doing well in it.
He took that advice and today, Dr Narain is the President and CEO of BPGbio Inc, a Boston, US-based biotechnology company that uses artificial intelligence to better understand human biology and develop new medicines. Widely regarded as a pioneer at the crossroads of biology and AI, he led the creation of the company’s NAi Interrogative Biology® platform – a system that helps scientists uncover disease patterns and identify promising treatments.
