Excited to share AutoScreen, the last piece of my thesis work and an AI co-scientist system for target discovery! I started this in 2024 after CRISPR-GPT. Having spent a lot of time working with CRISPR screens, I saw opportunities for agents to speed up the work of deciding which genes to test. We built agents for literature research, data curation and information synthesis to prioritize screen hits and suggest starting gene libraries. We also wanted to look beyond the familiar genes that tend to dominate these searches. Really glad to see the work continue through multiple cancer immunology experiments in my mentor Le Cong’s lab. AutoScreen helped prioritize genes whose activation was then shown to increase cancer cells’ resistance to immune-cell killing. AutoScreen was an early attempt to put agents to work alongside scientists in target discovery. We wanted to make the process faster and improve the quality of target selection, helping researchers pick out real biological hits from noisy experimental data. Thank you to my mentor, Professor @lecong , Professor @MengdiWang10 , and our co-authors Xuefeng Liu, Xiaotong Wang, Meitong Chen, Xiao Luo, Luna Lyu, Ming Yin, and the rest of the team. Special thanks to the teammates who drove the wet-lab validation and took this work further. Blog: phylo.bio/blog/autoscreen Paper: phylo.bio/papers/autoscreen.…

𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗜 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝘀𝗸𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗮𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗡𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲, 𝗖𝗲𝗹𝗹, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲? To find out, we built 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗺𝗻𝗶𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗵, a benchmark we co-developed with the original paper authors and 5+year domain experts to grade AI agents the way a peer reviewer reads a paper: scrutinizing methods, reasoning, and every analytical choice, not just the final answer. As the first track of this benchmark, 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗺𝗻𝗶𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗵-𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀 contains 100 data-analysis tasks drawn directly from 21 published studies in Nature, Cell, Science, Nature Medicine, and other leading journals. Each task hands the agent a real dataset and a research question, then scores its full analytical trajectory against an expert-authored rubric. What's inside: - 𝟭𝟬𝟬 𝘁𝗮𝘀𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝟱 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀 (𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆, 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆, 𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆, 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰 & 𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗲, 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘀𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿) 𝗽𝗹𝘂𝘀 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 - 𝟭𝟳 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲𝘀 (𝗲.𝗴., 𝗚𝗪𝗔𝗦/𝗲𝗤𝗧𝗟 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗧-𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗼𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀, 𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹-𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻) - 𝗔𝗻 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁-𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝘂𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗰 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝘀𝗸, 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝟲 𝗱𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 - 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀-𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝟵 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝗟𝗟𝗠𝘀 (𝗚𝗣𝗧-𝟱.𝟱, 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝗢𝗽𝘂𝘀 𝟰.𝟳, 𝗮𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀) 𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝟰 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀 (𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗲, 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗲𝘅 𝗖𝗟𝗜, 𝗧𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝘂𝘀-𝟮, 𝗚𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗶 𝗖𝗟𝗜) Headline results: - 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝟳𝟯.𝟯/𝟭𝟬𝟬, 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲. - 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹. - 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗶𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴. We hope to make 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗺𝗻𝗶𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗵 the most helpful benchmark for biologists to understand how AI agents handle real-world biomedical tasks: where they can be trusted, and where they fall short. We're actively expanding our evaluation effort, and would love to engage the broader scientific community on what comes next. 📄 biorxiv.org/content/10.64898… 🤗 huggingface.co/datasets/phyl… Thanks to our amazing @phylo_bio team (Minta Lu, @TuXinming , @serena2z , @TianweiShe , @lecong , @jure , @KexinHuang5 ) and our collaborators at @LaudeInstitute , @Stanford , @Harvard , @PKU1898 , @virginia_tech , Humanlaya Data Lab, Xbench: @alexgshaw , JOU-HO SHIH, Bingqing Zhao, Minjie Shen, Haochen Yang, Jielin Yan, Rongchuan Zhang, Xinze Wu, Tingting Li, Xiaobo Hu, Yuan Jiang, Jiayun Dong, Tao Peng.