Jul 21, 2026

Causal Models Need Causal Data - Xaira’s X-Cell model (Bo Wang & Ci Chu)

Bo Wang and Ci Chu of Xaira Therapeutics introduce X-Cell, a 4.9-billion-parameter diffusion language model designed to predict cellular responses to genetic perturbations. Trained on PISCES, the largest genome-wide CRISPRi Perturb-seq dataset (25.6 million single cells across 16 contexts), X-Cell overcomes limitations of previous observational models. The discussion highlights the critical role of high-quality, causal data, X-Cell's architecture advantages, and its demonstrated ability to generalize to unseen cell types and primary cells, marking a significant step towards truly predictive virtual cell models in drug discovery.

Jul 16, 2026

Learning Genetic Perturbation Effects at Single-Cell Resolution for Virtual Cells

Jiaqi Zhang's talk focuses on advancing causal discovery and perturbational modeling for gene networks, crucial for therapeutic insights. She introduces theoretical guarantees for learning latent causal variables and presents MORPH, a VAE-based framework that predicts the effects of novel and combinatorial gene perturbations by integrating diverse prior biological knowledge and using distributional loss for training. The model has demonstrated success in guiding experimental design, including identifying novel T-cell regulators for cancer immunotherapy, highlighting its potential to accelerate biological discovery and drug development.

Jul 06, 2026

Builders Unscripted: Ep. 5 - Derya Unutmaz

Derya Unutmaz, an immunologist, shares how AI, particularly Codex, is transforming biological research, from building custom cell analysis tools and T-cell simulators to envisioning a future of digital twins and personalized medicine, highlighting a coming "Science 2.0" paradigm.

May 27, 2026

He Raised $70M to Cure Every Disease With AI

Samuel Rodriques, founder of Edison Scientific, shares his journey from physics to building an AI scientist named Kosmos. He discusses how AI agents are already making novel discoveries, including a potential cure for blindness, and are poised to revolutionize drug discovery. The conversation dives into AI's strengths in high-throughput reasoning, the critical bottlenecks in clinical trials, proposed reforms for the US medical system, and whether human scientists will still be needed in an age of hyper-intelligent AI.

Apr 29, 2026

Demis Hassabis on Building DeepMind, AlphaFold, and the Final Stretch to AGI

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, outlines the path to AGI, which he predicts by 2030. He discusses the profound impact of AI on science, particularly in revolutionizing drug discovery with systems like AlphaFold, and posits that AI will enable new forms of simulation-based science. Hassabis also delves into the philosophical underpinnings of his work, viewing information as the universe's most fundamental quantity and advocating for developing AGI as a powerful tool before tackling the deeper questions of consciousness.

Apr 16, 2026

Episode 16: Building AI for Life Sciences

OpenAI research lead Joy Jiao and product lead Yunyun Wang detail the development of specialized AI models for the life sciences. They discuss the new biochemistry-focused model series designed to accelerate research in genomics and protein understanding, the critical challenge of managing biosecurity risks through a "differentiated access" model, and the future vision of AI-powered autonomous labs that could revolutionize drug discovery and personalized medicine.