By Sascha Brodsky
Publication Date: 2026-02-09 12:00:00
DeepMind is building a single system meant to read regulatory DNA as a unified code. IBM’s approach centers on decomposing biological questions into well-defined tasks, with models optimized for the mathematical and biological structure of each domain.
“Our work on Biomedical Foundation Models (BMFM) takes a more practical, modular approach,” said Michal Rosen-Zvi, Director of AI for Healthcare and Life Sciences at IBM Research, in an interview with IBM Think. “We decompose complex biological questions into well-defined components and identify the mathematical and algorithmic innovations required for the specific tasks at hand.”
Based on this analysis, IBM develops specialized models tailored to distinct domains, including RNA transcriptomics, DNA sequence analysis, and small-molecule and protein representation, according to Rosen-Zvi. “Each model is designed to optimally capture the modalities most relevant to its domain, whether that is primary sequence,…
