GenBio has launched AIDO Cell, a system it describes as a world model and simulator of the human cell. The idea is to let scientists create a virtual cell, perturb it with drugs or genetic changes, observe what happens across different layers of biology, then keep experimenting on the state they have created.
BAIO got an early look at the launch material before today’s announcement, including GenBio’s 42-page technical report. I also sat down with Eric Xing, GenBio’s co-founder, president and chief scientist, to talk about what the company believes it has built, why it thinks biology needs simulators, what AIDO Cell can actually do today - and what still has to be proven.
A small warning before we begin: this is not your ordinary BAIO issue. It’s a proper long read. It is also something of a sequel. Just days ago, we published a special report on GenBio’s Nature Medicine Perspective, which lays out the larger ambition behind its AI-Driven Digital Organism. That was the blueprint. AIDO Cell is the first attempt to turn a substantial piece of it into something scientists can actually use.
And, somewhat unexpectedly (or maybe not), our story begins in Kitty Hawk in 1903.