PyData Special (Lisbon AI Week) : AI for Healthcare and Life Sciences

Heya everyone,

We're excited to announce we're having special PyData Lisbon Meetup in collaboration with the Lisbon AI Week! It will be dedicated to AI for Healthcare and Life Sciences and will take place at our favorite venue: Idea Spaces São Sebastião. We're having a Life Sciences talk, a Healthcare roundtable, and the usual pizza, drinks, and networking. Check the details below 👇

BioLLMs for Drug Discovery - Cristiana Carpinteiro and Jorge Sampaio (Loka)
Developing a new drug is an extremely long and expensive journey, often taking more than a decade from discovery to approval. Biological Large Language Models (BioLLMs) are offering new ways to speed up this process by learning the “language” of biology, from DNA and RNA to proteins and small molecules. In this presentation, we’ll explore how, at Loka, we applied these foundation models to deliver value for a biotech client and create measurable impact. We’ll discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of using BioLLMs in real-world applications, highlighting both their potential and the practical challenges of bringing this technology into production

AI for Healthcare: bridging engineering, product, research, and clinical practice
AI in healthcare is advancing fast—supporting clinicians, improving patient outcomes, and reshaping how care is delivered. But making these solutions work in the real world demands tight collaboration across disciplines. This roundtable brings together leaders from hospitals, academia, and industry to share what’s driving real progress today: smarter workflows, better data use, and products built with clinicians in mind. A grounded look at where medical AI is already making a difference and what’s coming next. We’re fortunate to have a diverse lineup spanning academia, clinical practice, and industry innovation:

• Arlindo Oliveira, Professor at IST
• Daniel Rodrigues, Staff AI Product Manager at Sword Health
• Nuno André da Silva, Deputy Director for Data Science and Innovation at Hospital da Luz Learning Health.
• Suelen Cristina, Machine Learning Engineer at Loka

Program:
18:00 - 18:30: Walk-in
18:30 - 19:15: “BioLLMs for Drug Discovery” by Cristiana Carpinteiro and Jorge Sampaio
19:15 - 19:30: Quick Break
19:30 - 20:30: "AI for Healthcare: bridging engineering, product, research, and clinical practice" – With Arlindo Oliveira, Daniel Rodrigues, Nuno André da Silva, and Suelen Cristina
20:30 Onwards: Networking, Pizza and Drinks

Looking forward to seeing you,
Telmo @ Loka