Dr. Kyle Biggar, Institute of Biochemistry
Eureka! Faculty Spotlight
How AI is Changing Drug Development at Carleton and Beyond
For Dr. Kyle Biggar, Carleton wasn’t just where his research began, but where it learned to evolve.
An associate professor in Carleton’s Institute of Biochemistry, Dr. Biggar is also a Carleton alumnus and the Chief Science Officer and co-founder of NuvoBio, a biotechnology company accelerating drug discovery through AI-driven technology. His career bridges academic research and entrepreneurship, a path he hopes students can feel empowered to pursue if they choose.
Dr. Biggar completed a joint honours degree in biology and chemistry at a time when undergraduate research opportunities were limited. His early interests were focused on how organisms, such as the turtles that were a focus of his early conservation research, can adapt and survive extreme environmental stresses. This curiosity eventually led him to Carleton and the research of Dr. Ken Storey, where he developed skills in molecular physiology to further explore these survival mechanisms.
In his early research days, Dr. Biggar studied how animals can survive extreme stress and even sequenced the world’s first turtle genome. He briefly stepped away from Carleton to explore the medical side of health sciences at another institution, expanding his knowledge on human health.
Looking back, it’s the combination of those experiences – as an ecologist, molecular physiologist, and cancer biologist – that shaped his research and career.
“I always tell students that just because you started your undergrad doing one type of research doesn’t mean you need to end up there,” Dr. Biggar says. “It was a collection of the bits and pieces from each field that I put together in a unique way to create my path.”
Turning Research into Real-World Solutions
Today, Dr. Biggar wears many research hats at Carleton. In his lab, he studies peptides, small pieces of proteins that exist naturally in the body, with the goal of using them as molecular tools and potential therapeutics.
Peptides already well known in modern society, they constitute well-known drugs like insulin and GLP-1 therapies – both peptides. Other times, they can be used as tools to better understand how proteins function, or fail to function, in diseases like cancer.
Dr. Biggar says what motivates him is not only scientific discovery but translating those discoveries and pushing them further.
In 2016, he began collaborating with Dr. James Green, from Carleton’s Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, along with a Carleton PhD student, to develop an AI-powered drug discovery platform called DarwinAI. What traditionally took years could now be completed in weeks with this new platform.
“The motivator was to take something that was created in academia and give it the potential to translate discovery into real-world applications,” Dr. Biggar says. “The other motivator was to create employment opportunities for my students”.
Using DarwinAI, Dr. Biggar’s lab can tackle one of the biggest questions in medicine: why promising drugs fail and how to fix them earlier in the development process. The result is quicker, smarter drug discovery that reduces time and cost while improving the chance of new treatments making it to market.
Students at the Centre of Breakthroughs
Student involvement is central to Dr. Biggar’s work at both Carleton and NuvoBio. His lab is closely integrated with the company, offering students hands-on experience at the intersection of science and industry.
“The beautiful thing about building something with your students is that they understand the science and the mission at a very deep level,” he says. “Many of the leaders at NuvoBio started as trainees in my lab.”
Dr. Biggar’s advice to incoming students and aspiring scientists is simple: don’t be afraid to reach out.
“People are friendlier than you think,” he says.
He encourages students to ask questions, join labs, build their network, and challenge the artificial barriers that make professors and industry professionals seem out of reach.
Thinking About a Future in Science?
Whether you’re interested in biology, biotechnology, medicine, computer science, or another scientific field, Carleton Science offers opportunities to combine disciplines and turn your interests into impact.
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