Brian Plosky

Abstract Generalist biological artificial intelligence (GBAI) represents a transformative approach to modeling the ‘language of life’—the flow of information from DNA to cellular function. This Review synthesizes rapid advances in biological AI to interpret and generate DNA, RNA, proteins and cellular systems. We chart a course toward comprehensive systems that can concurrently process and predict across these domains, performing several critical biological tasks simultaneously.

Main text Rapid advances in single-cell technologies and high-throughput perturbational measurements have motivated renewed efforts to model cell behavior quantitatively. These “virtual cells” are expected to learn the relationship between cell state and function and are intended to predict the consequences of perturbations—such as a gene knockdown or the application of a drug—across cell types and cell contexts.

Brian Plosky. (COURTESY PHOTO) By Brian Plosky While I have been a scientific editor for 17 years and editor-in-chief of Molecular Cell for more than five years, I had previously never traveled to China. I have interacted with many exceptional Chinese scientists working either in China or other countries, but it is clear that in the past several years both the quantity and quality of molecular biology research happening in China has grown and continues to grow.