Validation and Recognition
Researchers with no technical background have used our AI-driven modeling technology to build working models and gain new insights into how biological systems behave under experimentation.
Pilot: Life Modeling Workshop 2026
A second, larger pilot, delivered by Omphalos Lifesciences (Donghoon Lee, PhD, co-CEO, as instructor): an AI-native modeling workshop including an in-person checkpoint at KRIBB in Daejeon. Participants across several institutions, none with a modeling background beyond the workshop itself, split into disease-modeling teams: colorectal cancer, HER2+ breast cancer, NSCLC/tumor-immune, obesity, and NSCLC tumor microenvironment with CAR-NK.
participants from 4 institutions
sessions · Jul 8 – Aug 10, 2026, weekly
disease-modeling teams
“AI [coupled with mechanistic simulation] was a very powerful research tool… like a new kind of pipette and instrument that lets a researcher run the experiment they want quickly.”
Participant 1, KRIBB (KPEC), colorectal cancer team
“The role of simulation is not to substitute for computation the AI cannot do, but to adjudicate which of the things the AI is confident about are also true under this system’s premises.”
Participant 2, Yonsei College of Pharmacy, NSCLC / CAR-NK team
Pilot: McMaster University
Delivered by Omphalos Lifesciences (Donghoon Lee, PhD, co-CEO, as industry partner and instructor) for this senior-level McMaster undergraduate course, bringing life-science students on as course-embedded interns across disease teams (Huntington’s, rheumatoid arthritis, fibrosis, hantavirus), building mechanistic disease models with AI assistance, with little or no coding background.
participants · McMaster University
sessions · May 6 – Jun 17, 2026, weekly
disease-modeling teams
“AI accelerates construction of models, but simulation is where the biological accuracy or applicability gets tested.”
Participant 1, McMaster University, Hantavirus team
“A model is not a simulation of reality, but rather a structured argument about reality.”
Participant 2, McMaster University, Rheumatoid Arthritis team
Funded & recognized work
- ARPA-H BIOGAMI Program, Team SEEDSVirtual-cell modeling of protein aggregation
- Paratus Digital Health DEV FundA. baumannii models for antimicrobial resistance research
- Paratus Showcase Excellence AwardCompetitive recognition among the cohort
- KRIBB: Development and Validation of Digital Bacteria for Therapeutics Against Refractory Bacterial InfectionsAdvances and validates the A. baumannii models
ARPA-H: the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. Omphalos participates in the BIOGAMI program as part of Team SEEDS, co-led by the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and Georgetown University.
Paratus: The Digital Health Hub within the BARDA Accelerator Network, operated by MATTER.
BARDA: the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
KRIBB: Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology.