President of Research & Development Therapeutics, Schrodinger
Search every verified Karen Akinsanya interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a September 2020 appearance on NewYorkBIO's Virtual Breakfast series, Karen Akinsanya, then President of Research & Development Therapeutics at Schrodinger, discussed the company's dual identity as both a software and biotech firm. She described Schrodinger's physics-based software as enabling atomistic-level modeling of molecular interactions, allowing researchers to explore chemical space computationally rather than through iterative synthesis. Akinsanya noted that she joined Schrodinger after using its software at Merck, where she saw the potential to apply the tools more broadly across multiple drug targets. Akinsanya highlighted Schrodinger's collaborative structure, describing the company as "completely virtual" with a lab that "extends around the world." She mentioned partnerships with Google Cloud and pharmaceutical companies including Novartis, Gilead, and Takeda to identify antivirals for COVID-19. She contrasted Schrodinger's physics-based methods with typical AI/ML approaches, stating that physics-based simulations can provide accurate compound interactions even when training data is limited. Akinsanya also discussed her passion for science education, noting that she co-founded My Tech Learning to create a lab where children can explore experiments, and expressed a desire to see "science coaches" in every community working with children at the bench.
“The Schrodinger software is basically physics-based, it's atomistic level modeling of how molecules interact with each other. Imagine a universe in which you can explore vast amounts of chemical space on the computer, not synthesizing the molecules in an iterative empirical way, but ideating on the computer which molec...”
“When I came across Schrodinger, I was at Merck and we were actually using the software to solve a particular challenge in a program. It struck me that while one could use it on that specific idea, what if you could do this more broadly on a larger set of targets? That desire to do more with the tools we have is how I e...”
“Schrodinger is both a biotech company and a software company. We are still developing software solutions and pushing the envelope in computational chemistry, but we also have an established drug discovery unit of about 80 people that operates like a biotech.”
“We are a completely virtual company; our lab extends around the world. Collaboration is in the DNA of Schrodinger. We work with eminent scientists and co-found companies to pursue therapeutic hypotheses and discover medicines.”
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