Israeli serial entrepreneur Dr. Micha Breakstone says advances in artificial intelligence and data generation are pushing biology toward a new era of predictive engineering, with major implications for regenerative medicine and disease treatment.
In an interview on the Jerusalem Post's Business and Innovation podcast, recorded shortly after his arrival in Israel, Breakstone discussed his transition from conversational AI to founding Cellular Intelligence, a tech bio company focused on understanding how cells respond to signals and change states.
After selling his previous AI company for $575 million, Breakstone said he felt a responsibility to apply his experience to challenges with broader societal impact. Drawing on his background in mathematics, AI, and company building, he assembled a founding team that includes leading scientists from Harvard and MIT, many of whom are members of the US National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.
What are the goals of Cellular Intelligence?
Cellular Intelligence aims to move biology away from decades of trial-and-error experimentation. According to Breakstone, producing specific human cell types today can take more than a decade of research and tens of millions of dollars. His company is working to build predictive models that can determine which signals will guide a cell from one state to another, without genetic manipulation.
Breakstone said recent breakthroughs, such as AlphaFold, demonstrated how AI can unlock previously inaccessible scientific problems. However, he stressed that biology requires far larger and more complex datasets. To address this, Cellular Intelligence has developed proprietary technologies that enable millions of microexperiments to be run simultaneously, generating orders of magnitude more data than previously possible.
This approach could accelerate progress in regenerative medicine, including therapies for Parkinson’s disease, type 1 diabetes, and other degenerative conditions. Early clinical trials using cell grafting techniques have already shown significant promise, he said, though most treatments remain in development.
Looking ahead, Breakstone said success would mean launching curative therapies and establishing a foundation model for cellular behavior. While he cautioned against overstating timelines, he said he expects disease-altering treatments for conditions like Parkinson’s to become widely available within the next decade.