In this episode of Science in Real Time, host Carli Reyes brings listeners a behind-the-scenes recap of SBI2 2025, the premier conference for quantitative imaging, high-content screening, and bioinformatics. Carli breaks down the biggest scientific trends shaping the future of imaging—from foundation models and AI-driven analysis to multi-omics integration and next-generation 3D model systems.

This fast-paced, insight-rich episode dives into the keynotes, workshops, posters, and technology showcases that defined the meeting, while highlighting standout contributions from the Araceli Biosciences team. If you work in phenotypic screening, cell imaging, computational biology, or drug discovery, this recap distills what you need to know!

🎧 What You’ll Hear:

• Why SBI2 matters for the future of quantitative imaging
• Top trends in Bioimaging: deep learning, reproducibility & cloud pipelines
• Araceli Biosciences highlights at SBI2, including:

Victoria Arinella (UF Scripps) — improving assay reproducibility through automated image quality metrics.
Dr. Claudia McCown (UF Scripps) — advancing collaborative imaging and multi-site data workflows.
Conference reflections from Dr. Kristin Halfpenny, emphasizing the convergence of AI, 3D biology, imaging automation, and analytics.

• Multi-omics + imaging = The next big leap
• What makes SBI2 a unique scientific community
• What’s next in imaging: AI integration, 3D models & automation

🌐 Explore & Connect:
Learn more about SBI2, ScienceIRT and Araceli Biosciences at:

• Science in Real Time Podcast Webpage
• Araceli Biosciences LinkedIn
• Society of Biomolecular Imaging & Informatics (SBI2) Website

Got an idea for a topic or a guest you’d love to hear on Science in Real Time? We’d love to hear from you!
Connect with us at our ScienceIRT Website or on LinkedIn: Araceli Biosciences.

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and share it with a colleague who’s just as passionate about shaping the future of biotech as you are!

🔗 Links:

• Science in Real Time: https://www.aracelibio.com/science-irt-podcast-biology-big-data/
• Araceli Biosciences LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/araceli-biosciences/
• Society of Biomolecular Imaging & Informatics (SBI2): https://www.sbi2.org/

In this episode of Science in Real Time, host Carli Reyes sits down with Dr. Tarun Vemulkar, CTO and Co-Founder of Semarion, to explore how their groundbreaking SemaCyte® platform is reshaping the way scientists handle, study, and analyze cells. They dive into the intersection of materials science and cell biology, unpacking how Semarion’s smart materials enable faster, more reproducible cell-based assays — ultimately accelerating the path from discovery to therapy.

What You’ll Hear:

• The Origins of Semarion – how the team spun out to solve long-standing challenges in cell handling.
• The SemaCyte® Platform Explained – how controllable microcarriers enable miniaturized, high-precision cell assays.
• Bridging Materials Science and Biology – how Semarion’s interdisciplinary approach is unlocking new efficiencies in drug discovery workflows.
• Real-World Applications – use cases for pharma, biotech, and academia in streamlining screening and model validation.
• Looking Ahead – where Semarion sees the future of smart materials and how they’re scaling their impact across the life sciences ecosystem.

🌐 Explore & Connect

Learn more about Semarion and the SemaCyte® platform on their website or LinkedIn.

Got an idea for a topic or a guest you’d love to hear on Science in Real Time? We’d love to hear from you!
Connect with us at our ScienceIRT Website or on LinkedIn: Araceli Biosciences.

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and share it with a colleague who’s just as passionate about shaping the future of biotech as you are!

🔗 Links

• Science in Real Time: https://www.aracelibio.com/science-irt-podcast-biology-big-data/
• Araceli Biosciences LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/araceli-biosciences/
• Semarion Website: http://www.semarion.com/
• Semarion LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/company/semarion

In this Molecule Talk episode, host Carli Reyes explores CellCLIP, a provocative new approach at the intersection of high-content imaging and AI. Based on a June 2025 preprint, CellCLIP attempts to link Cell Painting images with natural language descriptions of perturbations, making cellular data more interpretable, searchable, and useful across disciplines. While still preliminary and not yet peer-reviewed, the idea has the potential to transform how scientists connect cell morphology with biological concepts.

What You’ll Hear:

• Cell Painting 101 — how high-content imaging creates “morphological fingerprints” of cells, and why these fingerprints are powerful but hard to interpret.
• The CellCLIP idea — adapting the CLIP model from computer vision to align cell images with text descriptions like drug names, pathways, or gene knockouts.
• Proof-of-concept results — retrieval tests, mechanism-of-action classification, and generalization across genetic and chemical perturbations.
• Why it matters — from improving interpretability to enabling cross-modal integration of biology, and even accelerating drug discovery.
• Open questions — how well CellCLIP handles unseen drugs, whether it learns biology vs. memorization, and how it will scale to massive datasets like JUMP-Cell Painting.

Together, these insights highlight a shift toward bridging cell biology and natural language — creating tools that could help scientists move from abstract image features to intuitive, actionable biological concepts.

Got an idea for a topic or guest you’d love to hear on Molecule Talk? We’d love to hear from you!
Connect with us at our ScienceIRT Website or on LinkedIn: Araceli Biosciences.

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and share it with a colleague who’s just as passionate about shaping the future of biotech as you are!

🔗 Explore & Connect

• Science in Real Time Website: https://www.aracelibio.com/science-irt-podcast-biology-big-data/
• Araceli Biosciences LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/araceli-biosciences/
• Twitter/X: @AraceliBio
• Instagram: @ScienceIRT_AraceliBio
• TikTok: @ScienceIRT_AraceliBio

References:

• Ramesh, B., Singh, A., Huang, Y., Thienpont, B., & Carpenter, A. E. (2025). CellCLIP: Learning perturbation effects in cell painting via text-guided contrastive learning. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.06290 (PREPRINT)