CZI @ STAT Breakthrough Summit: Virtual Cells Might Be Closer Than We Think — Thanks to AI

At STAT 2025 Breakthrough Summit West, Patricia Brennan, vice president of science technology and general manager for science; and Gita Mahmoudabadi, senior research scientist, AI; joined STAT reporter Katie Palmer for a fireside chat on how CZI is building and training AI models to accelerate biomedical research. Their conversation focused on the release of TranscriptFormer, a new AI model that is trained on 112 million cells from 12 different species, covering 1.5 billion years of evolution and representing the most evolutionarily diverse corpus of training data. Scientists will be able to use the model to predict what different types of cells are, whether a cell is diseased and how genes interact. TranscriptFormer is an important step toward CZI’s goal of building an AI-based virtual cell model to predict and understand cell behavior.

Learn more about TranscriptFormer and our scientific grand challenge to build AI-powered virtual cells to help scientists unlock the inner workings of human biology and move closer to our goal to cure, prevent and manage all diseases in this century.

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About the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was founded in 2015 to help solve some of society’s toughest challenges — from eradicating disease and improving education, to addressing the needs of our local communities. Our mission is to build a better future for everyone. For more information, please visit chanzuckerberg.com.