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virtual cell
also AI virtual cell or AIVC or virtual-cell model
Definition of virtual cell
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: an AI model that represents cellular state and predicts how a biological cell may respond to genetic, chemical, environmental, or disease-related changes, often using single-cell and multi-omics data
- Researchers used a virtual cell to predict which genes would change activity after a drug treatment before running the wet-lab experiment.
- The challenge tested whether an AI virtual cell could generalize to cell types and genetic perturbations it had not seen during training.
Two meanings, one word
In everyday English
A computer-based representation of a biological cell.
In AI
An AI model that represents cellular state and predicts how a biological cell may respond to genetic, chemical, environmental, or disease-related changes, often using…
Origin & history
Scientists have built computational cell models for decades, but virtual cell became a major AI research goal in the mid-2020s as foundation models began learning directly from large single-cell, spatial, and multi-omics datasets. A 2024 Cell perspective described an AI Virtual Cell as a multiscale, multimodal neural model for representing and simulating molecules, cells, and tissues, and research initiatives and public challenges later adopted the term.
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Cite this entry
"Virtual cell." AI Dictionary, Dadgogo, https://dadgogo.com/dictionary/virtual-cell/. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.