Artificial intelligence is reshaping brain modeling. This review introduces a unified framework where AI functions as a surrogate brain by integrating dynamical modeling, inverse problem solving, and model evaluation. Trained on neural data, surrogate brains can accurately predict large-scale brain activity and support system analysis, virtual experiments, and model-guided neurostimulation.

EMBARGOED: A new study to be presented Dec. 6 at the 2025 American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting reveals that even subtle disruptions in genome architecture can predispose individuals to lymphoma. This finding offers a new perspective on understanding and eventually treating blood cancers.

Interactions among viruses can help them succeed inside their hosts or impart vulnerabilities that make them easier to treat. Scientists are learning the ways viruses mingle inside the cells they infect, as well as the consequences of their socializing. Although it is debatable whether viruses are living things, they do compete, cooperate and share genome materials that can sometimes alter their responses to antiviral drugs, result in new variants or play a role in virus evolution. A paper today in Nature Ecology & Evolution by UW Medicine scientists looks at the evolution of poliovirus resistance to a promising experimental antiviral drug, pocapavir. While it seemed counterintuitive, the researchers demonstrated that lowering the potency of pocapavir could improve the situation by enhancing the survival of enough susceptible viruses to continue sensitizing the resistant ones.

The discovery holds the potential to inspire innovations in biotechnology, from the development of new “smart” materials to nanoscale drug delivery systems.