From Tokens to Cells: Foundation Models for Single-Cell Biology - Akram Baharlouei, Altos Labs
Altos Labs is applying foundation models to single-cell biology to model cellular rejuvenation and aging
“restore cell health and resilience through cellular rejuvenation to inverse disease and disabilities that can happen throughout the life”
An ML engineer at Altos Labs describes engineering challenges of adapting foundation model architectures to single-cell biological data, treating gene expression profiles as token sequences. The talk frames cell reprogramming research—culminating in a first human trial of an OSK reprogramming medicine in 2026—as motivation for building unified cell models. This represents an emerging frontier where LLM-style architectures are being retooled for biology, with implications for drug discovery and longevity medicine, but the talk is introductory and lacks novel model results.