Isaac Bishara

City of Hope · Unravel Genomics

Isaac Bishara

Physician-scientist building AI-driven biotech operations

"There has to be a better way to do this"

Isaac Bishara, physician-scientist
Journey from clinical medicine in Egypt to cancer genomics at City of Hope

I trained as a physician in Egypt before cancer genomics pulled me into computational biology. Each chapter exposed problems the last field could not solve. The clinic needed better diagnostics, the lab needed better tools, and operations needed better automation.

At City of Hope, I earned a Ph.D. in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, developing machine learning methods for single-cell genomics and precision oncology. That work sharpened my instinct for translating dense science into clinically actionable insight.

Today I serve as Chief of Staff at Unravel Genomics while continuing postdoctoral research at City of Hope. I build agentic AI systems that compress weeks of grant writing, strategic planning, and administrative work into hours, giving lean teams the leverage of a much larger organization.

What I Do Now

Operating at the intersection of science, strategy, and AI systems.

Unravel Genomics operations

Unravel Genomics

Chief of Staff

October 2025 – Present

  • Partner with founding leadership to translate scientific vision into executable strategy across R&D, regulatory, commercial, and operations.
  • Architect multi-track financing spanning non-dilutive grants, angel networks, and VC outreach.
  • Led SBIR/STTR grant proposal development, coordinating scientific narrative, budgets, and compliance requirements.
  • Built investor-facing pitch materials for SynBioBeta, Tricon, and partner negotiations.
Liquid biopsy research at City of Hope

Andrea Bild Laboratory, City of Hope

Postdoctoral Fellow

October 2025 – Present

  • Advance a liquid biopsy program using cell-free DNA for non-invasive, real-time cancer monitoring.
  • Generate translational data feeding Unravel Genomics' ENDORSE and Cancer Journey clinical products.
  • Optimize somatic variant detection from low-input cfDNA samples via multi-modal sequencing strategies.

Projects

Selected builds, contributions, and shipped work.

AI agent systems for biotech operations

Builder & Deployer

AI Agent Systems for Biotech Operations

Biotech-specific AI agents built on custom knowledge bases and context engineering, compressing weeks of grant writing, planning, and admin work into hours.

AI AgentsBiotechOperations
AutoGen multi-agent framework

Open-source contribution to a widely-adopted multi-agent AI framework.

Open SourceAIAgents
Expert AI training work

Contract work providing domain expertise to improve model performance and reliability.

AIContract
Unravel Genomics website

Web Developer & Designer

Unravel Genomics Website

Company web presence and investor-facing digital materials.

Web DesignFull-stackBiotech
Ollie Finance dashboard

Builder

Ollie Finance

Personal finance tooling for tracking, planning, and decision-making.

Full-stackPythonSupabase

Research & Publications

Peer-reviewed work, patents, awards, and conference presentations.

AACR 2024 poster presentation

Publications

  • Longitudinal snRNA-seq Analysis of Low-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer Under PIPAC Therapy

    NPJ Precision Oncology · 2025

  • PhylinSic: Inferring Cancer Phylogenies from scRNA-seq Data

    Scientific Reports · 2023

  • A Machine Learning Framework for UMI Threshold Optimization in scRNA-seq

    Frontiers in Genetics · 2022

  • Genome-wide CRISPRi Screens in Glioblastoma Models

    Journal of Neuroscience Research · 2021

  • Real-time Detection of Nicotine in Human Dopaminergic Neurons

    Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience · 2018

  • Intracellular Biosensors for Nicotine and Ketamine in Dopaminergic Neurons

    Journal of General Physiology · 2018

Patents

  • Point-of-Care Diagnostic Device for SARS-CoV-2 Detection via Isothermal Amplification

    U.S. Patent No. 17/559,706 · 2020

Awards

  • AACR–Doreen J. Putrah Cancer Research Foundation Scholar-in-Training Award

    American Association for Cancer Research · 2024

Talks & Posters

  • Intra-patient Heterogeneity in End-Stage Metastatic Breast Cancer

    AACR Annual Meeting (Poster) · 2024

  • Machine Learning Framework for scRNA-seq UMI Threshold Optimization

    CSBC Annual Meeting (Poster) · 2023

Full publication list on Google Scholar.

Writing

Markets, gold, and the signals beneath headline returns.

Topics

  • Gold and modern capital markets
  • Stock-to-flow and scarcity models
  • Household borrowing and market stress

Latest post

Contact

Let's connect.

Open to collaborations with biotech operators, investors, AI teams, and scientific partners.