Generative AI for Cell Biology: Stephan Mandt joins CZI Residency Program

Stephan Mandt, a professor at UC Irvine’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS), has been selected as an AI Resident for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. CZI, founded by Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, combines technology and philanthropy to tackle some of the world’s toughest challenges, including advancing efforts to prevent, manage and treat various diseases over the coming decades.
Mandt’s research focuses on generative AI techniques to build virtual cell models — digital twins of cells capable of simulating cellular behavior in response to conditions like drug treatments. “Our goal is to create accurate, reusable models that predict cellular behavior across a variety of scenarios,” says Mandt. Such models could one day improve our understanding of diseases and inspire new treatment options.
Generative AI for Biology
Mandt’s expertise lies in creating general-purpose AI methods for generating, understanding and manipulating noisy, incomplete and high-dimensional data from various domains. These techniques are ultimately being adapted to create scalable digital twins of cells, integrating data from different sources to model complex cellular processes. The residency supports Mandt’s team of several Ph.D. students and postdocs, providing access to state-of-the-art computing resources for training large-scale generative models.
“This program will allow his team to explore generative AI in the biological and natural sciences,” says Tony Givargis, Chair of the Department of Computer Science in ICS. “In addition to financial support, the students and postdocs in his group will have access to a large compute cluster for training foundational models in natural science applications.”
Advancing Open Science
Mandt’s work builds on his prior experience in applying generative AI to fields like climate science, physics and chemistry. His team is committed to developing open-source tools, ensuring virtual cell models are accessible to researchers worldwide. “Our goal is to provide the scientific community with reusable tools that accelerate discovery and innovation in biology,” says Mandt.
— Shani Murray