Here today to unpack how immersive interfaces support drug research and development is Keita Funakawa, founder and COO of Nanome. Join us to hear about the first application that Nanome set out to mainstream; drug discovery, and how they are bringing their vision to bring science into a collaborative, intuitive, and obvious space. You’ll also learn about Harvard’s study into how VR can support chemistry education, and what it has been like for Keita to work with big pharmaceutical companies with a product he built right out of school. We touch on quantum computing, and discuss the COVID19 supercomputing project Nanome has been involved with, before talking about the AI generated potential therapeutics analyzed by humans in virtual reality. Nanome reaches far and wide, from being used to analyze battery cells, to integrations in the food and beverage industry. Keita shares a bit about these relationships, and reveals the details of his funding journey during the pandemic. We hope you join us to hear all this and more today!    Key Points From This Episode: The first application that Nanome set out to mainstream: drug discovery.An introduction to our guest, Keita Funakawa.Nanome’s vision for what science ought to look like: collaborative, intuitive, and obvious.How education forms part of the vision to lower the barrier to entry to complex data. Harvard’s study into how VR can support chemistry education.What it has been like working with big pharmaceutical companies with a product they built just out of school.Nanome’s role in enabling scientists to make mistakes early and virtually.How they are starting to integrate with quantum computers and quantum results.The COVID19 supercomputing project that simulates what would happen with different drugs.The AI-generated potential therapeutics for COVID19 analyzed by humans in virtual reality.How Nanome is being used to analyze battery cells.The food and beverage industry’s relationship with Nanome’s technology.What vision they are building for: a world where everyone has a VR or AR headset.Nanome’s investor and funding journey during the pandemic.How seeing Google Hardboard for the first time changed everything for Keita.“We’re very mission-driven about what science ought to look like, and we know that science ought to look collaborative, it ought to look intuitive, it ought to look obvious. These are some of the problems, a lot of science isn’t like that right now.” — @KeitaWF [0:04:37] “It is very much within our vision and passion to lower the barrier to entry to these types of complex data and science, as a whole. Education has also been a pretty big part of this.” — @KeitaWF [0:05:46] “What does the next generation scientific interface look like when everybody has a VR or AR headset just like they do a smartphone? That’s the vision that we’re building for.” — @KeitaWF [0:25:00] Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: Keita Funakawa on Twitter Keita Funakawa on Instagram Keita Funakawa on LinkedIn Nanome Nanome on YouTube Pearly Chen on Twitter VIVE