From The Scientist by Carissa Wong, PhD
An artificial intelligence tool, scGPT, can identify cell types, predict the effects of disrupting genes, and pinpoint which genes interact with each other.
Scientists investigate disease targets by studying gene expression data often obtained by assaying entire cell populations. For instance, researchers used bulk RNA sequencing to discover druggable cancer-associated protein targets1 and to uncover potential blood-based biomarkers for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.2
More recently, scientists have turned to single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), which provides insights into how gene expression varies between indivi cells.3 Scientists typically analyze scRNA-seq data using machine learning tools that have been built from scratch to carry out specific individual tasks.
