Steven M. Muskal, Ph.D.
AI Pioneer | Drug Discovery Expert | Creative Innovator | Serial Inventor
CEO of Eidogen-Sertanty with over 40 years at the intersection of AI, chemistry, biology, and drug discovery. Host of the Renaissance Circle podcast. Builder of Study with Hannah, AI-Steve, Food Health Scan, and AI-Dad.
Professional Excellence
Current Leadership
Chief Executive Officer - Eidogen-Sertanty
Leading the development of innovative AI-driven solutions for drug discovery and computational chemistry,
bridging the gap between molecular science and practical therapeutic applications.
Areas of Expertise
AI & Machine Learning
Four decades of experience applying AI to solve complex scientific challenges
Drug Discovery
Pioneering computational approaches to accelerate therapeutic development
Computational Chemistry
Expert in molecular modeling and structure-based drug design
Data Science
Advanced analytics and big data solutions for life sciences
Music & Creative
Drumming, recording, and creative collaborations in my music studio
Career Highlights
Distinguished Career Path
- Founder - Sertanty, Inc. (acquired Eidogen)
- Senior Positions - Affymax Research Institute, Glaxo Wellcome Research Computing Board
- Early Innovation - Molecular Design Limited
- Advisory Roles - Multiple AI and data science companies
Education
- Ph.D. in Chemistry - University of California, Berkeley
- B.Sc. in Engineering Chemistry & Computer Science - Colorado School of Mines
Deep Dive Audio
Listen to audio versions of my articles and insights. Each Substack article has an accompanying audio deep dive.
🎧 Site Overview Audio
Get a complete audio summary of my work, research, and creative projects.
Projects
All projects →
Study with Hannah: Medical School Study Cards
Searchable medical school study cards with USMLE prep notes, medical image search, and an AI study tutor.
AI-Steve
Personal research and coaching assistant grounded in PostgreSQL embeddings of email, calendar, photos, and chats.
AI-Dad
Conversational AI that preserves voice, wisdom, and stories across generations.
Image Explorer
CLIP plus pgvector visual memory engine for similarity search, clustering, and annotation.
AI-Steve Code Directives
Domain-specific auto-coding workflows that wrap project directions in AI-Steve context.
Food Health Scan
iOS and Android app turning meals into structured nutrition data via photo capture and AI analysis.
Food Health TxD
Diabetes-aware companion to Food Health Scan: AI carb and macro estimation paired with continuous glucose monitor data.
ShareHealth
iOS companion for clean Apple Health exports, daily signals, and shareable reports.
Apple Health Integration
Quantified sleep and recovery analytics inside AI-Steve using Apple Health exports.
Face → Health
Longitudinal vision signal for sleep and wellness modeling from daily face imagery.
CT Viewer
DICOM-to-browser viewer with 3D rotation and cross-sectional navigation.
AI-Driven Drug Discovery
Machine learning models for drug-target prediction and lead optimization.
Polypharmacophore / PharmPrint
3D pharmacophore fingerprinting for virtual screening and natural-product matching.
Drug to Table
Finding therapeutic compounds hidden in food through molecular similarity.
Toast Our Friend
A celebration engine for gathering stories, photos, gratitude, and memory.
Renaissance Circle Podcast
Steven M. Muskal, Ph.D. - AI Pioneer, Drug Discovery Expert, Innovator, and Musician
Explores science, business, and the art of feeling good.
Where innovators, scientists, and entrepreneurs discuss the future of health and performance
📼 Latest: We Are Optimizing the Wrong Objective in Biology
We Are Optimizing the Wrong Objective in Biology starts with a personal anomaly: Steve's Amazon cart registered a respiratory infection about four days before his wearables did. From there it argues that medicine has spent a generation predicting protein structure and other intermediate abstractions, while nature never optimized structure at all. Evolution optimizes fitness through a DNA to organism to outcome loop, and that, not structure, is the objective medicine should share.
The turn is that everyday behavioral data, our purchases, wearables, and transactions, already works as a population-scale physiological sensor network no one ever pointed at health. Five peer-reviewed studies back it, from 47,000 Fitbits tracking CDC flu curves to smartwatches flagging COVID before symptoms. The right question is not what structure a protein adopts, but given everything we know about a person, which intervention improves their trajectory.
Recent Articles
All articles →
We Are Optimizing the Wrong Objective in Biology
My shopping cart registered an infection four days before my sensors did. Why medicine should optimize trajectory, not structure, and how everyday data already proves it.
AI for Everyone
Natural-language tools now let anyone build real software. The case for teaching everyone to create with AI instead of gatekeeping it, as competitive advantage and human flourishing.
That Go There
A toddler, a wooden state puzzle, and a tape that outlived five formats: why the memories worth keeping need a body that can move.
Study with Hannah
62,000 medical school study cards, an AI tutor built in a day, and one question: if schools can monetize educating students, why can't students own what they build?
Universities Built the Bomb. Now Build This.
Berkeley and its peers can build citation-backed AI knowledge systems from their research, courses, libraries, and faculty expertise.
Toast Our Friend
Toast Our Friend turns celebrations of life into something people can receive while they are still here: stories, photos, gratitude, and memory gathered into living circles.
Same Lab, Different Decades
Steven Muskal and Jonas Lee connect the Sung-Hou Kim Lab, structural biology, AI drug discovery, China biotech, open-source pharma, and prevention.
The Rise of the Machine
From America's software bet and China's robotics push to dexterous hands, autonomous vehicles, lightness, energy, and labor disruption, AI is stepping out of the data center.
Music & Creative Sessions
All sessions →Example Presentations
Recent
My 38-Year Journey with Neural Networks: Can They Further Unlock Pichia's Potential?
Conference presentation on the application of neural networks to unlock the potential of Pichia pastoris in biotechnology and protein expression systems.
Blast From The Past
Historic Presentation from 2010 (15+ years ago. Always on the "bleeding edge...")
A look back at research and insights from 2010.