Speaker: Jiayuan Ding is a researcher in AI for Science and AI for Healthcare. He is currently a Visiting Researcher at Stanford University, working with Prof. Xiaojie Qiu on foundation models for single-cell biology. Simultaneously, he is a Staff Research Scientist and Tech Lead at Hippocratic AI, leading LLM and multi-agent system development for virtual nurse system. Jiayuan received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Michigan State University, advised by Prof. Jiliang Tang. Jiayuan has received numerous awards, including two MSU Engineering Distinguished Scholar Awards, 1st place at NeurIPS 2021 Single-Cell Competition, and a Kaggle Silver Medal (Top 2%) in the NeurIPS 2022 multimodal challenge. His tools and models have influenced both academia and industry, featured by organizations such as Forbes, Yahoo Finance, and the Associated Press.

Date: December 18, 2025

Time: 10:30-11:30 am

Location: Room 513, Three Area, Teaching Building, Software Campus, Shandong University

Sponsor: School of Software, Shandong University

Abstract:

Single-cell genomics has rapidly evolved, creating unprecedented opportunities for understanding cellular organization and molecular regulation. This presentation outlines a unified research trajectory that advances from task-specific tools toward next-generation foundation models designed for single-cell, multi-omics, and spatial biology. The discussion begins with Graph Neural Networks acting as biological interpreters across scales, highlighting models such as FOCUS, scMoGNN, and GNNDeconvolver. It then addresses the practical barriers limiting the adoption of AI in single-cell biology through tools like DANCE and DANCE 2.0. Finally, the talk introduces biological foundation models engineered specifically for cellular systems, including CellPLM, Tabula, and scLinguist. This paradigm shift lays the groundwork for constructing AI-native biological simulations, ranging from the Digital Cell to the Digital Human.

For more information, please visit:

https://view.sdu.edu.cn/info/1020/209043.htm