AI Models Rapidly Teaching Themselves Fundamentals of Biology and Making New Cell Discoveries
-
Computers trained themselves in 6 weeks to identify a rare kidney cell, the Norn cell, that produces the red blood cell hormone erythropoietin. This took humans 134 years to discover.
-
New AI models are making important discoveries about how genes work and cells develop without being explicitly taught by humans.
-
The models are grouping cells based on biochemical similarities and learning fundamentals of developmental biology on their own.
-
The models still have limitations in areas but are rapidly improving as more cell data is fed into them.
-
Scientists speculate the models may someday produce virtual cells to run computer experiments on, make cells with new functions, and reveal secrets of diseases like cancer.