TAIPEI (TVBS News) — The Berkeley Club of Taiwan (台灣柏克萊校友會) hosted its annual Berkeley Dialogue on Wednesday (Feb. 11), focusing on biotechnology and drug development. The event brought together alumni, faculty deans, two Nobel Laureates, and Chancellor Richard K. Lyons to discuss global collaboration, innovation ecosystems, and AI-driven advancements in drug development.
Fred Ramsdell, the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate, highlighted AI's transformative impact on healthcare, emphasizing its unparalleled ability to integrate vast amounts of data. They noted that while the human brain struggles to comprehend the complex interactions among 20,000 genes and 100,000 proteins, AI can potentially make sense of these networks. "We're not there completely yet," he stated. "But you can easily see how AI's going to be able to make sense of those interactions and those networks that the human brain can just never possibly do."
Dean of the Biology Sciences Division at UC Berkeley, Richard Harland, also addressed trust in AI, drawing parallels with self-driving cars. He suggested that as AI in medicine demonstrates reliable results, public trust will grow, though setbacks may prompt reevaluation. "It will be very much as it is with self-driving cars. So, currently, self-driving cars are safer than human-driven cars, but whenever one has a crash, it's a big crisis. So, I think it'll be the same with AI medicine, so as long as it produces good results, and shows it can produce good results, then people will begin to trust it."
Cultural factors also emerged as a significant hurdle in AI development. UC Berkeley Chancellor Richard K. Lyons proposed shifting cultural perspectives to foster a more conducive environment for innovation. "In my perspective, I think it's culture, it's the shared norms and values that help institutions evolve faster. How do we move a culture from "no, because" to "yes, if"?"