smart tech
Artificial intelligence has a big potential to disrupt the technology industry, and one Houston company that was founded by a computer science professor at Rice University, is fast on its way to help lead that future now in a convenient and affordable way.
Founded by Anshumali Shrivastava and Tharun Medini, a recent Ph.D. who graduated under Shrivastava from Rice's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, ThirdAI is building AI deep learning tools that aim to be sustainable and scalable to fit the changing needs of the industry. The company is on a mission to democratize AI, Shrivastava tells InnovationMap.
Shrivastava likes to use the word efficiently when describing what makes ThirdAI different, and how its programs can teach AI via multiple avenues to be what he refers to as “1,000 times more efficient.”
“The carbon footprint of these models are off the charts, and so expensive,” Shrivastava. “We believe this could be made efficient. … We use the same ideas that were developed, but we do it on a massive scale.”
ThirdAI's latest tool is a multilingual ChatGPT-like AI training tool PocketLLM app. Announced earlier this month, the tool is free. According to the company, users have access to a personalized chatbot that understands what the user is searching within documents, and can be fine-tuned to help elaborate your thoughts through a neural search. 
ThirdAI's PocketLLM app is free to use. Image courtesy of ThirdAI
The app is private and secure and runs on deep-learning algorithms according to Vinod Iyengar, head of product at ThirdAI, and no one — not even ThirdAI — has access to the documents except the user.
“Tools exist to help people search text files, but that requires sharing your data with third parties,” says Iyengar in a news release. “Our solution is private and secure, powered by deep learning algorithms. And it returns results lightning fast.”
The process includes the user installing the app, uploading any text document files, and clicking "train." Minutes later, you have an AI tool that can process the information in those documents.
“The neural search encourages you to elaborate on your thoughts with details in the discover window and see the difference in results,” says Shrivastava in the release. “It can also be fine-tuned to your tastes by selecting the relevant option and hitting the update button to re-train."
In September of 2021, ThirdAI — pronounced "third eye" — raised $6 million in seed funding. The round was invested in by three California-based VCs — Neotribe Ventures and Cervin Ventures, which co-led the round with support from Firebolt Ventures. The technology ThirdAI is working with comes from 10 years of deep learning research and innovation. The company's technology has the potential to make computing 15-times faster, the company reports.
Anshumali Shrivastava is an associate professor of computer science at Rice University. Photo via rice.edu
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CPRIT funding spotted
A biotech company has landed a more than $13 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.
The nearly $13.3 million grant given to OncoResponse — which is relocating from Seattle to Houston, according to CPRIT's news release — will help the company develop fully human monoclonal antibodies for treatment of cancer that otherwise would not respond to immunotherapy. OncoResponse already has a partnership with MD Anderson Cancer Center, which is one of the company’s investors.
“We are thrilled to receive this recognition from CPRIT in supporting the potential of our immunotherapy candidate OR502. We greatly appreciate the additional support from our investors as we continue to make significant progress with our drug development efforts advancing immunotherapies derived from clues of Elite Responders,” says Clifford Stocks, CEO of OncoResponse, in a news release. “We are excited by the data generated to date supporting the ability of OR502 to modulate inhibitory macrophages in the tumor microenvironment and induce anti-tumor activity.”
Aside from the grant, OncoResponse just hauled in $14 million from existing investors in a round led by RiverVest Venture Partners. Other participants in the series D round include Venture Partners, Canaan Partners, 3B Future Health Fund, Bering Capital, Takeda Ventures, and InterVest Capital Partners.
To date, OncoResponse has raised more than $180 million, according to market research company CB Insights.
A representative of OncoResponse couldn’t be reached for comment about the company’s relocation to Houston.
MD Anderson and Seattle-based Theraclone Sciences launched OncoResponse in 2015. Rice University was among the inaugural investors.
OncoResponse’s OR2805 immunotherapy product is being evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial. It’s the company’s leading immunotherapy candidate. OncoResponse is also working on OR502, an antibody being prepared for investigational and clinical studies.
“The modern treatment of cancer activates the body’s own immune system to attack cancer,” OncoResponse says in a summary posted on the website of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT).
“These treatments, called immunotherapy, may not be successful if the cancer can recruit bad-acting cells, such as tumor associated macrophages, or TAMs, that create barriers preventing immunotherapies from activating the body’s own defenses against the cancer. To find drugs that may help counteract these TAMs, OncoResponse looked to patients who had responded very well to immunotherapy to see if their bodies made factors to block TAMs and helped them fight their cancers.”
OncoResponse’s OR502 prevents TAMs from shutting down the body’s response to cancer, thus restoring tumor-killing immune activity, CPRIT explains.
In addition to OncoResponse, recent CPRIT grant recipients from the Houston area are:
“Texas is unique because of CPRIT’s ability to invest in cutting-edge research when private capital is scarce. This is yet another way Texas is leading the nation in the fight against cancer,” Wayne Roberts, CEO of CPRIT, says in a news release.
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