Boston — Cellular Intelligence announced that Yann LeCun, Robert “Bob” Langer, Jens Nielsen and Fabian Theis have joined its Scientific Advisory Board. Langer will also join the company’s Board of Directors as an observer.
The company is developing what it describes as a universal foundation model of cell signaling, combining artificial intelligence with experimental biology to better predict how cells respond to interventions and potentially support therapeutic development.
“We are bringing together people who have changed what is possible in AI, biology and medicine to tackle a shared question: can we learn the rules that govern how cells change, and use that knowledge to help patients?” said Micha Breakstone, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cellular Intelligence. “Yann, Bob, Jens and Fabian bring the scientific imagination and rigor this challenge demands.”
LeCun received the 2018 ACM A.M. Turing Award for foundational work in deep learning and founded Meta’s Fundamental AI Research lab. He is Executive Chairman of AMI Labs and a Silver Professor at New York University.
“The models that interest me learn how the world works from data and predict what happens when we act on it. Living cells present an extraordinarily rich version of that challenge,” LeCun said.
Langer is an Institute Professor at MIT and a Co-Founder of Moderna and numerous other biotechnology companies. His work has focused on drug delivery, tissue engineering and translating scientific advances into medical applications.
“I have been deeply impressed by the team Cellular Intelligence has brought together,” Langer said. “What draws me to this company is the opportunity to connect a fundamental understanding of cell behavior with the practical work of developing medicines.”
Nielsen is Chief Executive Officer of the BioInnovation Institute and Professor of Systems Biology at Chalmers University of Technology. He has authored more than 900 scientific publications and founded several biotechnology companies.
“Understanding a cell means understanding how its many systems work together,” Nielsen said. “Cellular Intelligence is bringing quantitative models and carefully designed experiments to that problem at an ambitious scale.”
Theis is Director of the Computational Health Center at Helmholtz Munich, Scientific Director of Helmholtz AI and Professor of Mathematical Modeling of Biological Systems at the Technical University of Munich. He is also a Co-Founder of the Human Cell Atlas.
“Progress in modeling cells depends on the quality of the questions our data allow us to ask,” Theis said. “What excites me about Cellular Intelligence is its ambition to build rich experimental data and predictive models together.”
The appointments follow the addition of Arjun Raj as Chief Scientific Officer and Scientific Co-Founder and Cellular Intelligence’s acquisition of STEM-PD, an investigational Parkinson’s disease cell therapy with FDA Fast Track designation, from Novo Nordisk in May 2026.
The company said manufacturing and clinical data from the STEM-PD program will feed back into its models. Its investors include Khosla Ventures, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Novo Nordisk.
