Friday, September 18, 2026
Science

Virtual biotech company puts thousands of AI scientist agents to work on drug discovery

The latest company to spin out of a Stanford Medicine lab is a biotech undertaking with 37,000 employees—and none of them are human. There's no lab space, no lunch breaks and no payroll. It's an artificial intelligence-powered virtual biotech company that's the brainchild of associate professor of b...

Virtual biotech company puts thousands of AI scientist agents to work on drug discovery
Image: Phys.org
The latest company to spin out of a Stanford Medicine lab is a biotech undertaking with 37,000 employees—and none of them are human. There's no lab space, no lunch breaks and no payroll. It's an artificial intelligence-powered virtual biotech company that's the brainchild of associate professor of biomedical data science James Zou, Ph.D., who is also the principal investigator of a virtual lab that launched in 2025, and graduate student Harrison Zhang.

Originally published at Phys.org

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