Invited Keynote 2 (Maria Brbic,Ph.D): "Generative AI for Multiscale Biology"

"Generative AI for Multiscale Biology" by Maria Brbic, Ph.D.

The complexity of biological systems arises from interactions across multiple molecular layers. Understanding these relationships requires models that can integrate high-dimensional, multimodal data and capture how cells behave, interact, and respond to perturbations. In this talk, I will present a suite of generative AI methods we developed to combine information across omics modalities with the aim to uncover principles of cellular organization and bridge molecular and tissue scales. I will demonstrate how these approaches can help to learn the rules governing spatial tissue structure and reveal links between cellular morphology and molecular state. I will also discuss key limitations of current AI methods in biology, along with ongoing benchmarking efforts and agentic frameworks built on top of these models. Finally, I will argue that challenging biomedical problems do not just benefit from advances in AI but they actively drive the development of new AI methodologies.