麻豆影院

鈥�30 under 30鈥� winner鈥檚 startup focuses on pinpointing why pharmaceuticals work

Joey Azofeifa (PhDCompSci鈥�18) is bringing together machine learning and state-of-the-art RNA sequencing technology to create better, safer prescription drugs.

Azofeifa is the founder of , a startup company that grew out of his research as a graduate student at CU 麻豆影院.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a general problem in pharmaceutical work that we don鈥檛 understand the mechanism of why a particular drug works for a particular person,鈥� Azofeifa said. 鈥淲e can see that a drug is working, but not why.鈥�

The company鈥檚 work is earning national attention. Forbes magazine recently named Azofeifa to its

Arpeggio pinpoints a drug鈥檚 mechanism of action by distinguishing primary drug targets from aftereffects that can obscure the message. This is priceless information for pharmaceutical companies, which waste millions of dollars and years of research and development on drug candidates that fail due to misunderstood mechanisms.

The key for Arpeggio is combining genomics with machine learning.听

鈥淲e鈥檙e collaborating across disciplines. Half of the company team is software and half is in a lab with pipettes,鈥� Azofeifa said.听

The company鈥檚 patent-pending process monitors how RNA changes over time when exposed to drugs. Past researchers have looked at RNA鈥攚hich acts as a messenger carrying instructions from DNA to where proteins are assembled鈥攂ut only at the end of experiments. Arpeggio is doing it continuously to pick up on changes throughout a drug鈥檚 action.听

Its algorithms are able to transform a sea of previously indecipherable genomic data鈥攖he human genome has some 3.2 billion base pairs鈥攊nto a gold mine of crucial information for drug development and patient selection in medical trials.

With seven employees, six of whom are CU 麻豆影院 graduates, Arpeggio is a small but growing company. Its offices will be familiar to many engineering alumni; it鈥檚 located in the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building, one of several businesses with university connections sharing campus facilities.听

Arpeggio has already worked with more than 20 companies and completed a round of fundraising last summer that brought in $3.2 million.听

鈥淚 originally wanted to just do science for science鈥檚 sake, but I love that we are solving real-world problems in health and medicine,鈥� Azofeifa said. 鈥淐reating safer and more effective drugs? Heck, yeah.鈥澨�

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