Read the full paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2501.060...

Would love to hear your thoughts! Feel free to reach out with questions.

This was a fantastic collaboration between researchers at @icepfl.bsky.social, @epfl-ai-center.bsky.social, the and University Hospital Zurich with co-authors Gabriele Gut , Andreas Wicki, Kiril Vasilev and Matteo Pariset! This is just the beginning - we’re excited of what is coming next!

🔎How?
VirTues is built on a novel vision transformer architecture that efficiently processes high-dimensional data and flexible numbers of input channels while maintaining biological interpretability.

💡Why now?
Spatial proteomics has just been announced ‘Method of the Year’ by @naturemethods.bsky.social due to its critical role in #clinical #diagnostics and #computational #pathology. VirTues is the first AI model that can handle the complexity and unique requirements of multiplex images

• Handle varying combinations of hundreds of protein markers without retraining.
• Provide interpretable insights from molecular to tissue scales through its multi-scale design and novel attention.
• Support clinical decisions through case retrieval and the creation.

🧬Our work tackles a key challenge in precision medicine: making sense of highly multiplexed tissue imaging data that captures dozens of molecular markers simultaneously. VirTues can:
• Provide zero-shot virtual tissue representations across cancer types and diseases.

Led by PhD students wencksternjo.bsky.social and @eeshaanjain.bsky.social, we introduce the Virtual Tissues platform (VirTues), a foundation model framework for analyzing complex tissue architectures.

Building Al virtual cells is no small feat!
With a massive scientific undertaking and shared goals, we posit that a comprehensive understanding of cellular mechanisms is within reach.

Stay tuned for exciting research coming out soon and consider joining my lab @icepfl.bsky.social!

aimm.epfl.ch

... integrates extensive community discussions, resulting in an author list consisting of key leaders across different fields of Al and biology from
@genentech.bsky.social, @chanzuckerberg.bsky.social ,
@msftresearch.bsky.social, @broadinstitute.org, @arcinstitute.org, @embl.org and more!

Our work with @yusufroohani.bsky.social, @yanayrosen.bsky.social, Theofanis Karaletsos, Aviv Regev, Emma Lundberg, Jure Leskovec, Stephen Quake ...