Meet the TranscriptFormer: a new model helping scientists explore cross-species biology.

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Issue 34 | May 2025

Stories - The CZI Blog ([link removed] )

This month’s stories spotlight CZI’s approach to tackling tough scientific challenges — and the tools helping make new discoveries possible.

Fluorescent microscopy image of human iPSC-derived macrophages, showing bright blue nuclei, green macrophage markers, and magenta cytoskeletal structures against a black background. ([link removed] )

4 Scientific Grand Challenges To Transform Human Health at the Intersection of AI and Biology

CZI has identified four scientific grand challenges, each focused on solving key biological questions that will demystify the inner workings of human biology to produce breakthroughs and accelerate science to significantly decrease the burden of human disease.

Explore the Challenges
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A branching tree diagram showing evolutionary relationships among species. Each species is represented with a label and image, and color-coded paths connect them to show lineage. ([link removed] )

TranscriptFormer: A Generative Cross-Species Cell Atlas

Learn how researchers can use TranscriptFormer, a generative AI model trained on over 12 million cells from 12 species across 1.5 billion years of evolution.

Get To Know the Model
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Side-by-side headshots of Sara Simmonds, CZI staff computational biologist, and James Pearce, staff AI/machine learning research scientist. ([link removed] )

AI Has Entered the Biology Chat

Hear from two of our researchers on building the TranscriptFormer model — Sara Simmonds, CZI staff computational biologist, and James Pearce, staff AI/machine learning research scientist.

Read the Q&A
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