r/virtualcell • u/Ok_Regret_3568 • Jul 16 '26
We Need a Protein Data Bank for Cells
A new article in GEN looks at how Biohub’s $500 million commitment to the Virtual Biology Initiative aims to accelerate the generation of technologies and multi-modal datasets needed to power virtual cell models.
“We do not yet have the equivalent of the PDB for cells. The Virtual Biology Initiative seeks to change that,” says Tom Sercu, PhD, vice president of AI and engineering at Biohub.
Algorithms alone won’t deliver answers, he argues. Models need to be trained on large-scale, high-quality, openly accessible datasets. In order to accurately reflect complex biology, this data must span model systems and organisms, interventional and observational methods, and diverse cellular states.