Ruth-Anne Pai

I took one disease from idea to an investable program in a week and then turned that workflow into open AI agents for any disease. It began with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a chronic food-driven condition I live with. From public omics, I mined EoE datasets into a ranked, druggability-filtered target landscape (surfacing CCL26 and POSTN), designed de novo protein binders, and carried it through a business plan, scientific plan, and regulatory strategy. Knowing the burden of life-long symptom maintenance firsthand, I initiated Project Tolera, an antigen-specific program to reprogram the immune system: because EoE is a food peptide presented on MHC-II to a pathogenic Th2 T cell, targeting that triad could induce durable tolerance instead of lifelong suppression. My engine nominated 832 tolerizing epitopes and modeled lead pMHC-II complexes. Seeing the pipeline generalize, I packaged every step into reusable skills, a Therapeutic Program Architect, and a Manuscript Architect, then re-ran it on esophageal cancer as a test. I also built the Patient Organization Navigator: a specialist agent and three skills that help patient advocates and rare-disease nonprofits map where their disease stands, what's been done, where the gaps are, and where their funding and capacity sit.