Early Career Award winner leverages AI to revolutionize the life sciences industry

Building solutions from the ground up for the big data challenge

As biopharma data explodes in complexity, companies like OmniScience are stepping in to create AI powered solutions that meet diverse client needs and use cases. According to RBC Capital Markets, approximately 30% of the world’s data today was generated by the healthcare industry — a figure that’s expected to keep climbing.

In response, Gallion made strategic connections by networking and forming partnerships with leading life science innovators. These industry leaders develop new health technologies and manage vast data collections at biotech, medtech and therapeutic companies.

“Being a scientist, I never expected to be so client-facing when I first started, or that I would like it as much as I do. It’s funny how your career can evolve.”

The irony of innovation is that each new developed piece of technology generates more data, including wearables like Fitbits, new imaging techniques, health care app data and omic biomarkers (genes, proteins or metabolites).

And for clinical trials, capturing information on drug efficacy, safety, and tolerability, and understanding individual genetics, demographics, lifestyle and preferences is crucial to the impact of new pharmaceutical treatments. These processes tend to create sophisticated data sets that are difficult to analyze.

As noted by Gallion, drawing insights from these overwhelming, ever increasing, complex data sets within biopharma is impossible without the help of AI/ML automation. At the same time, he must consider how these models will eventually be deployed in the real world, where business objectives, data security and regulatory approval matter.

“Being a scientist, I never expected to be so client-facing when I first started, or that I would like it as much as I do,” Gallion said. “It’s funny how your career can evolve. The advice I always give when I'm talking to someone in undergraduate or graduate school is that you can't be afraid to explore new things in your career, you never know what you might discover.”

The best part of the job, according to Gallion, is tackling some of the most interesting problems facing mankind. The ability to build an equally passionate team of peers from scratch and collectively pursue change in real time makes the job more than worth it.

“I’ve really enjoyed the journey at OmniScience. As part of the founding team, I’ve seen us grow from just a few people around a coffee table to an abundance of people focused on revolutionizing the clinical trial industry,” he said. “And I get to help shape it with people I really respect, it’s incredible.”

Gallion’s game-changing professional journey

Gallion’s career journey was not a straight line.

After working in a warehouse and mulling over the acceptance letters, he landed on the university far enough from home to give him some independence: Oregon State.

He hit the ground running by applying the pragmatic engineering mindset he learned initially to the biochemistry and biophysics and microbiology programs offered by the College of Science.

“I love the idea of borrowing ideas from nature: seeing how bats fly, how gecko's feet work, the tens of thousands of different proteins in jellyfish venom and then saying, ‘Oh, you could do something with that,’” he said.

From there, he dived deep into the microbial world of virology, where he learned how tiny virus structures interact with and affect the cells of living organisms. In one of his science courses, he met a representative from SIGA Technologies at their guest lecture.

Gallion coincidentally landed a part-time position that transformed into a full-time position as research associate at the same company, discovering a passion for computational sciences when he programmed his first liquid-handling robot for chemical screenings.

He is very thankful for the guidance and mentorship of Robbie Allen, the associate director of antiviral discovery in 2011. His time at SIGA taught him that science doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Successful scientific innovation requires the economic, societal and regulatory forces within industry.

At Oregon State, one of the most influential figures in his undergraduate experience was his thesis advisor Theo Dreher from the microbiology department. Dreher’s mentorship equipped Gallion with the skills to pursue strong, reliable research, preparing him for graduate school.

In his free time, Gallion learns about ant colonies for fun and is already a registered ant seller. He also embarks on hiking trips, produces watercolor and acrylic paintings and builds his own wooden furniture.

Despite the high stakes in biopharma, he’s not afraid to boldly tackle global health challenges early in his career. The College of Science is thrilled to honor Gallion at the Alumni Awards Ceremony at Oregon State in November for his unique and impactful contributions to global science.