Episode Description
In this episode of Neural Compass, host Mark Jacobstein sits down with Yaniv Erlich, founding CEO of 11th Therapeutics and one of the more unconventional minds working at the intersection of genomics, machine learning, and biology,for a conversation that moves from the economics of DNA sequencing to one of the most quietly remarkable public health stories you've probably never heard.
In 1990, sequencing one million nucleotides of DNA cost more than the entire annual gold output of US mines. Today it costs the equivalent of five grams of aluminum. That change was not incremental. And Erlich was there when it began.
New episodes every two weeks. This one has a story in the middle that will stop you.
This episode covers:
- How a supervised learning model extended read length from 36 to 78 nucleotides — limited not by the algorithm but by the largest hard drive available at a New York camera shop
- The rabbi who eradicated Tay-Sachs from the ultra-orthodox community without disclosing a single diagnosis — and what that teaches about precision medicine
- Why the delivery mechanism is the intervention, and why ignoring community norms means your screening program doesn't work
- What makes RNA fragile, why that's fine for vaccines and fatal for chronic disease, and what 11th Therapeutics is doing about it
- Why shared environment explains approximately zero percent of psychiatric risk variance — and why psychodynamic therapy and the genetics literature aren't talking to each other
About the Speakers
Yaniv Erlich, Guest
arrived at Cold Spring Harbor in 2005 to do a neuroscience PhD and ended up in bioinformatics because the sequencers needed someone who could code. What followed was two decades at the intersection of machine learning and biology — base calling models, combinatorial pooling systems, and work that kept accidentally overlapping with mathematical fields he hadn't known existed.
He is founding CEO of 11th Therapeutics, which is working on chemical modifications that make messenger RNA stable enough to treat chronic disease — not just deliver a vaccine and disappear.
He recommends Andrew Roberts's biography of Winston Churchill, which he read with a dictionary, cover to cover.
Mark Jacobstein is the co-founder and president of Jimini Health. A longtime entrepreneur at the intersection of AI and health tech, he now leads Jimini’s mission to transform mental and behavioral health through clinically grounded, AI-powered care.
For healthcare executives, researchers, investors, and anyone who thinks the mental health crisis deserves serious answers — this is the show.