Brian Plosky
@BrianPlosky
Scientific Publication Strategist, @ArcInstitute. Previously EiC @MolecularCell. Opinions are mine.
Personally, I've always liked puns in titles for Previews (or N&V), like this one in @MolecularCell - cell.com/molecular-cell… But I know that feeling isn't universal. What's your take on puns in titles?
Whoever is keeping track on the "it worked in mice but not in humans" scorecard...
Core Investigator @li_lingyin's new paper in @NatChemBio investigates why human STING inhibitors have shown limited efficacy, despite strong activity in mouse models. The study, led by @xujun_cao and @rjchan426, finds that the commonly targeted site on STING is not required for…
A great line-up of speakers for Cell Symposia Multifaceted Mitochondria June 2026 in Glasglow! Check it out and register early: cell-symposia.com/mitochondria-2… @KivancBirsoy @RutterLab @jourdainlab and more! #mitochondria @CellPressNews
Come join the bridge editing team @arcinstitute and build the future of genome design!
Happy to share that I'm continuing my research on bridge recombinases as a scientist in @pdhsu lab at the @arcinstitute! I am looking for a motivated post-grad to work with me as a research associate. If you are interested or know of someone, please use the link below:
"Moonlighting" is a fun concept in biology, but it can be an unintended consequence of simply discovering 1 function for a protein before learning about others. It is often treated as something special & unexpected, but it happens fairly often. See also cell.com/molecular-cell…
Moonlighting functions of phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase in cancer dlvr.it/TLjYGW
How many "competing models" turn out to both be accurate to some degree?E.g. centromeric nucleosomes (octamer vs. hexasome) or transcription termination (direct vs. allosteric). Consider a continuum of possibilities that can be true (a more quantum view, I suppose)
Online Now: Reconciling competing models on the roles of condensates and soluble complexes in transcription factor function dlvr.it/TLjNk8
“[We have] a much simpler goal: make the existing models good enough that experimentalists adopt and use them. Like the “GPT Moment,” this may not require any semblance of perfection.” Was a pleasure speaking with Elliott! Great take on the field and how State is changing things
What Are Virtual Cells? centuryofbio.com/p/virtual-cell Two months ago, I started working on an essay to answer this question. The goal was to cover a few of the recent research results. Simple as that! Instead, I went down a rabbit hole exploring ideas around cellular simulation…
"We often do a kind of mental 'deletion experiment'—imagining that if we didn't exist, would this discovery happen anyway? For many research topics, the answer feels like yes... But for oxygen and vitamins, I sensed there were gaps"
Welcome @ishahjain, Arc's eighth Core Investigator! Jain has spent more than a decade studying how the human body senses, and responds to, external molecules—especially oxygen and vitamins.
In the latest issue! Virtual Cell Challenge: Toward a Turing test for the virtual cell dlvr.it/TLds2X
Patrick Collison says humanity has never cured a complex disease. Not cancer. Not Alzheimer’s. Not Type 1 diabetes. His Arc Institute is trying something new: Simulate biology with AI. Test interventions before touching the body. Build a virtual cell. Test hypotheses in code.…
I f*** love this. And to put even more momentum behind this awesome movement by our @arcinstitute friends: 🥁@tahoe_ai will give $25K to the best model that is also open-sourced with weights on @huggingface for everyone's use! + maybe a mention on X by @ClementDelangue? ;)
Register today for the Virtual Cell Challenge and use AI to solve one of biology’s most complex problems. Announced in @CellCellPress, the competition is hosted by Arc Institute and sponsored by @nvidia, @10xGenomics, and @UltimaGenomics.
Getting to the virtual cell is the holy grail of life science. Now there's a challenge on to accelerate it cell.com/cell/fulltext/… @arcinstitute @CellCellPress @nvidia @10xGenomics @yusufroohani @StanfordAILab @davey_burke @UltimaGenomics
VCC is as much about the data as the task! Building reliability into Perturbseq data is a big part We designed for high quality: 300 perturbations 1000 cells/pert >50,000UMI/cell Diversity: Picked genes from a 2500-gene Perturbseq screen while maximizing overlap with past data
And learn more via this excellent article from @GENbio by @xiaofei_lin, with excellent quotes from many top scientists in the community: genengnews.com/topics/artific…
Delighted to announce @arcinstitute's Virtual Cell Challenge - a recurring, open, community-driven challenge to benchmark cellular foundation models See our announcement in @CellCellPress below, with prizes up to $100,000, sponsored by @Nvidia @10xGenomics @UltimaGenomics!
Register today for the Virtual Cell Challenge and use AI to solve one of biology’s most complex problems. Announced in @CellCellPress, the competition is hosted by Arc Institute and sponsored by @nvidia, @10xGenomics, and @UltimaGenomics.
Excited to see the Virtual Cell competition hosted by Arc Institute. We cant "wet lab" our way through the entire matrix of genes x cell types x environments of interest in biology. Cell state models will accelerate progress. x.com/arcinstitute/s…
Register today for the Virtual Cell Challenge and use AI to solve one of biology’s most complex problems. Announced in @CellCellPress, the competition is hosted by Arc Institute and sponsored by @nvidia, @10xGenomics, and @UltimaGenomics.
Announcing the inaugural Virtual Cell Challenge! Hosted by Arc Institute, and sponsored by Nvidia, 10x, and Ultima, help solve one of biology’s biggest challenges with AI by building cell state models that accurately predict responses to perturbation. virtualcellchallenge.org
The @arcinstitute Virtual Cell Challenge: prizes worth up to $100,000 for accurately predicting cellular responses to genetic or chemical perturbations.
An exciting week at Arc! Starting with the release of State, our perturbation prediction model, and now the Virtual Cell Challenge, which we hope will catalyze progress towards even better models in a similar way to how CASP brought us to models like AlphaFold and RoseTTAFold.
Register today for the Virtual Cell Challenge and use AI to solve one of biology’s most complex problems. Announced in @CellCellPress, the competition is hosted by Arc Institute and sponsored by @nvidia, @10xGenomics, and @UltimaGenomics.