Invited Presentation: Computational biology in the age of AI agents
Track: Distinguished Keynotes
Room: 01A
Authors List: Show
Presentation Overview:Show
AI agents—large language models equipped with tools and reasoning capabilities—are emerging as powerful research enablers. This talk will explore how computational biology is particularly well-positioned to benefit from rapid advances in agentic AI. I’ll first introduce the Virtual Lab—a collaborative team of AI scientist agents conducting in silico research meetings to tackle open-ended research projects. As an example application, the Virtual Lab designed new nanobody binders to recent Covid variants that we experimentally validated. Then I will present CellVoyager, a data science agent that analyzes complex genomics data to derive new insights. Finally I will discuss using AI agents to discover and explain new biological concepts encoded by large protein foundation models (interPLM). I will conclude by discussing limits of agents and a roadmap for human researcher-AI collaboration.