ECE Graduate Seminar Lecture, Speaker: Safiye Celik, Director of Data Science, Recursion (via Zoom)
Wednesday, November 5, 2025 1:00–2:00 PM
- DescriptionTitle:Mapping Biology with AI to Revolutionize Drug Discovery Abstract:The persistent challenge of "Eroom's Law", the decades-long decline in drug discovery R&D efficiency, necessitates new paradigms for biological research. This talk presents a high-throughput, data-driven approach centered on generating and modeling petabyte-scale morphological datasets. Using an automated platform, millions of experiments are performed weekly, applying diverse perturbations (e.g., small molecules, whole-genome CRISPR knockouts) to human cells, with phenotypic responses captured via high-content microscopy using the Cell Painting protocol. A key focus of this talk is the development and scaling of representation learning models to interpret this massive image data. We will detail the technical progression from weakly-supervised learning (WSL) to large-scale, self-supervised foundation models, specifically Masked Auto-encoders (MAEs). We will demonstrate that increasing model size and data volume yields more powerful representations that effectively recapitulate known biological relationships, creating robust "maps of biology." The practical utility of these models will be explored through case studies, including the identification of novel biological insights and the ability to uncover subtle, large-scale data artifacts, such as "proximity bias" in CRISPR-based functional genomics screens. Finally, we will discuss future directions focused on building a more holistic, multi-modal understanding of cellular states by integrating orthogonal datasets with these rich morphological profiles. Speaker:Safiye CelikDirector of Data Science, Recursion Bio:Safiye Celik is the Director of Data Science at Recursion, with 18 years of experience in computing and AI, including 12 years leading high-impact initiatives in industry and government research. She holds a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington, where her research applied machine learning to characterize complex biological systems, uncovering novel insights in cancer and Alzheimer's disease. At Recursion, she leads a team that develops, deploys, and optimizes machine learning models to transform experimental data into comprehensive maps of biology, advancing the vision of industrializing drug discovery. Host: Professor Ulkuhan Guler
- Websitehttps://www.wpi.edu/news/calendar/events/ece-graduate-seminar-lecture-speaker-safiye-celik-director-data-science-recursion-zoom