Summary – In this episode of Monetizing Innovation, we sit down with Ross Youngs, CEO and Founder of Biosortia, to explore a breakthrough at the intersection of microbiomes, AI-driven discovery, and scalable innovation.

Summary – In this powerful and reflective episode, Ross shares how his journey through biology, genetics, engineering, and leadership has come full circle with purpose. Drawing from science, nature, and lived experience, Ross explores why strong, grounded male leadership still matters, the importance of mentorship and psychological safety, and how every phase of life prepares us for the work we’re meant to do. This conversation is a reminder that real progress—whether in innovation or leadership comes from balance, courage, and learning from those who have walked the path before us.

Direct Access Microbial Dark Matter for AI-Driven Polypharmacology Drug Discovery

Summary – The pharmaceutical industry is currently trapped by two opposing forces—the saturation of common natural scaffolds and the infinite dilution of synthetic libraries—which collectively drive Eroom’s Law and push the cost of discovery to unsustainable levels. Our strategy reverses this trend by deploying a hybrid model that mines the “dark matter of biology”—the vast, unexplored chemical grammars hidden in rare biomes—to serve as the structural priors for AI-driven design. By decoding these evolutionary rules first, we effectively bypass the high failure rates of random synthetic screening, ensuring that our earliest preclinical candidates already possess the “bilingual” capacity to satisfy both therapeutic targets and biological safety constraints. This approach front loads value creation, shifting the investment opportunity to the earliest preclinical stage where the de risking occurs, thereby securing the highest possible ROI as envisioned by our Proof of Concept WL-Portfolio asset.