Life Sciences Meet-up #2: Viewpoint: What's AI ever done for me? Artificial Intelligence in my life science research - past, present and future. Debate: Does AI help or hinder doctors on the front line? Programs: update on the AI life sciences group's objectives

Last month, Simon Haworth and Kris Krüg pulled together a small group — drug discovery researchers, health analytics leads, clinicians, interoperability architects, venture folks, and data-for-good practitioners — for a no-presentations, no-pitches supper at Simon's place. Attendees included folk from Genome BC, Providence Healthcare Ventures, a front line doctor, data regulators, AI tech folks, entrepreneurs, consultants, life sciences researchers and ... Simon with his biotech AI drug discovery hat on. What happened was what usually happens when you put genuinely different life-sciences perspectives in the same room with good food and honest framing: the conversation went places a conference panel never would.

We talked about where AI is actually working in life sciences (drug discovery has moved fast — one-third of new pharma development now involves AI) and where we're still in the early innings (the biology frontier is harder than the chemistry, wins suggest, and front line healthcare doesn't quite know what to make of AI - though patients seem to have a pretty good idea). We talked about why Canada's health data fragmentation is a governance problem as much as a technology problem. About patient records: a priceless resource with which to solve human diseases or an institutional IP win that the patients don't want to share? About why some clinicians immediately see AI as an enabling workflow tool while others experience it as noise - or irrelevant - and what changes that.

We ALL get it: AI matters in healthcare. For the second year running, WebSummit Vancouver attendees rated healthcare as the market segment offering greatest benefits from AI application but ... there was still no life-sciences track and global pharma didn't even turn up. It seems there is more to do. So let's get on and do it

Meet-up #1 was a good night. Even Simon's appalling poetry hasn't put us off from doing it again. June 2nd: the circle widens. This is Meetup #2. Same DNA cross-silo, concrete, community-first. With a slightly wider table.

If you work anywhere in the life sciences and AI space in BC: biotech, pharma, clinical research, health informatics, medical devices, health policy, patient advocacy, venture, or academia — this is your gathering. We won't be pitching products or doing a hackathon. We'll be talking about what BC can do on the two stages that matter to us: global and local. The life sciences meetup is for those who want to take action and those who want to make new connections (and then do something useful with those new relationships).

What to expect

6:00 PM: Doors open, informal mingling, a little wine

6:30 PM: Short framing from Simon and Kris: where we