From Tokens to Cells: Foundation Models for Single-Cell Biology - Akram Baharlouei, Altos Labs

Akram Baharlouei from Altos Labs discusses the engineering hurdles in developing foundation models for single-cell biology. The talk covers the importance of single-cell analysis for cellular rejuvenation and drug discovery, the complexities and challenges of single-cell data (particularly RNA-seq), and a comparative analysis of current foundation model approaches, highlighting the limitations of transformer-based models and the potential of flow matching techniques like PrimeFlow.