Arc News

On June 9, Arc welcomed Isha Jain as our eighth Core Investigator. Jain (X: @ishahjain) has spent more than a decade studying how the human body senses, and responds to, external molecules—especially oxygen and vitamins.

The competition, hosted by Arc Institute at virtualcellchallenge.org and sponsored by NVIDIA, 10x Genomics, and Ultima Genomics, is focused on accelerating progress in AI modeling of biology. Entrants will create models that will predict effects of single gene perturbations in cells. With a grand prize worth $100,000, the challenge is part of Arc's efforts to inspire the creation of high-quality datasets and help establish standardized benchmarks for virtual cell modeling.

Today, Arc is releasing its first generation virtual cell model, called State. The model is designed to predict how various stem cells, cancer cells, and immune cells respond to drugs, cytokines, or genetic perturbations.

Arc Institute continues its work to generate and share large-scale, high-quality datasets of cell state before and after chemical or genetic perturbations to enable “virtual cell” models and other innovations. Two months after launching the Arc Virtual Cell Atlas comprising over 300 million cells, the initiative is now benefiting from new partnerships with 10x Genomics and Ultima Genomics, industry leaders in advanced tools that make collecting single cell data faster, more scalable, and more affordable for scientists working to improve human health.

Arc Institute’s 7th Core Investigator, Christoph Thaiss, officially arrived in January, moving cross-country from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was investigating how interactions between the environment, body, and brain impact physiology and disease over the lifespan.