Do Perturbation Predictors Learn Gene Interactions? Diagnosing Extrapolation in Agentic Screening
Read the original on arXiv Machine Learning →The Flow has not summarised this story yet — read it at arXiv Machine Learning.
The Flow has not summarised this story yet — read it at arXiv Machine Learning.
arXiv:2512. 22240v5 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Machine learning models are primarily judged by predictive performance, especially in applied genomics, where explanations are read as biological findings.
The paper introduces CELLAUDIT, a method for auditing whether inputs claimed to influence predictive models actually do so. By testing if an input can enter the computation, whether predictions depend on it, and if that dependence improves observed responses, the authors evaluate agent-generated predictors on a morphology‑transcriptomics benchmark (BBBC047). Their findings show that many models claim compound contributions that are not supported by the data, and that falsification‑guided revisions can recover genuine input effects while improving performance.
arXiv:2606. 01042v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Perturbation experiments are central to understanding cellular mechanisms, but remain costly and sparse, motivating prediction of gene expression responses for unobserved conditions.
arXiv:2607. 14096v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In predictive modeling, the ability to explain why a model produces a given target prediction has become increasingly important [5, 10].
The paper introduces OmicsBench, a new reasoning benchmark for multi‑omics sequences that includes 1,160 expert‑validated questions across DNA regulation, RNA processing, and protein function tasks, requiring traceable evidence chains. Evaluation of 17 large language models shows that scientific LLMs, while more accurate in classification, often lack valid evidence, suggesting shortcut learning. To address this, the authors propose tool‑augmented on‑policy distillation (TA‑OPD), a post‑training method that improves both evidence grounding and predictive performance across five Qwen3.5 models of varying sizes.
arXiv:2512. 17678v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Selecting compact and informative gene subsets from single-cell transcriptomic data is essential for biomarker discovery, improving interpretability, and cost-effective profiling.