Google DeepMind releases AlphaGenome 2 to predict how cells read DNA and how variants affect them

AlphaGenome 2: Deciphering how cells read DNA to better understand disease

Google DeepMind released AlphaGenome 2, which conditions on cell type or state to predict how DNA sequences and their variants affect specific human cells. The model was trained on more than 107 million single-cell profiles. On the TenK10K dataset it identified causal variants 30% of the time, against 16% for the original model fine-tuned on single-cell data and for other specialized tools. It can also analyze unseen cell states without retraining.

Why it matters: AlphaGenome 2 narrows predictions from tissue averages to cell types and states, helping pinpoint the genetic variants that act in specific disease-relevant cells.