More on Biomni and Claude Science: Newsletter, July 14, 2026
A new content series, Illumina’s German MiSeq snag, ONT First-half results, Natera gets IVDR certification, NIH grant-making continues apace, and more.
Last week’s podcast focused on the rise of so-called AI agents, a software layer that acts as go-between for humans interacting with large language models.
My guest, Tahoe Bio CSO Johnny Yu, and I discussed two examples: Biomni and Claude Science. It’s worth looking more closely at what they claim to be able to do.
Biomni, a toolkit developed by researchers at Jure Leskovec’s Stanford University lab, can do things like design molecular constructs and review the scientific literature. In the Science publication introducing it, the team tested various applications:
Analyzing data from “wearable” sensors
performing comprehensive bioinformatics analyses on massive raw datasets such as single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq data
designing laboratory protocols to assist wet-lab researchers
optimizing a protein sequence for better thermostability
orchestrating robotics wet-lab instruments.
They also evaluated Biomni on its performance versus a human expert (post-doc or faculty member) for single-cell RNA-seq annotation, rare disease diagnosis, and genome-wide association study causal gene detection. The results:
In single-cell annotation, Biomni achieves 45.8 percent accuracy, in the range of the strong expert baseline (40.5 percent and 50.9 percent), while reducing average analysis time from approximately 230 minutes to 75 minutes per dataset.
For rare disease diagnosis, Biomni attains 60 percent accuracy across cases, matching expert performance (60 percent-70 percent) while completing analyses in roughly 3 minutes, compared to over 110 minutes for human experts.
In GWAS causal gene detection, Biomni reaches 80 percent accuracy across queries, again comparable to expert performance, while reducing execution time from approximately 90 minutes to 4 minutes per locus.
Across tasks, Biomni consistently matches expert accuracy while requiring substantially less time.
Claude Science, an “AI workbench” recently launched by Anthropic, is already being used by researchers to similar ends.
Jérôme Lecoq, a neuroscientist at the Allen Institute, used Claude Science to build agents to write literature reviews. According to Anthropic:
Before Claude Science, it could take Lecoq’s team as many as two years to write such a review. He now has about 10 reviews, many more than 100 pages, with citations that were checked over by reviewer agents.”
No word on whether he also wrote an AI agent to help summarize those 100 page reviews.
Anthropic also highlighted the work of Stephen Francis, a researcher at the UCSF Brain Tumor Center with an interest in gliomas.
His lab investigates the genetic basis for how thousands of small-effect germline variants combine to shape individual susceptibility. Although this work predated Claude Science, Francis said the app has dramatically accelerated the analysis, enabling comprehensive germline workups across multiple approaches in roughly one-tenth the time it previously took. His group independently validated Claude Science’s results, confirming that it can produce both rapid and robust analyses.
Ion Genomics Updates
Part of why I started Ion Genomics was to provide a deeper look into the work I was doing that didn’t necessarily make it into a story. My job is to pull out what’s interesting, however, I constantly found myself wishing I could include more for people who wanted to take the time, or find ways to present material that didn’t neatly slot into one of the limited story types I had to work within.
I’m pleased to introduce the first installment of “Raw Reads,” a new feature where I share a deeper look at the conversations behind the stories on Ion Genomics.
I pulled out highlights from a press conference with Leskovec and his coauthors for the Biomni paper. I’ve refined and edited the transcript so that you can read more of their most informative and thoughtful answers to questions posed by us reporters.
Reminder: Happy Hour!
Final call to mark your calendars for the happy hour this Friday, July 17, with Molly Zeller. Make sure to sign up for a Substack account to get access to the live broadcast and chat, or catch it later on the usual podcast channels.
Other genomics news
Court Orders Illumina to Halt MiSeq Sales in Germany After Patent Ruling
A German court ruled that Illumina infringed patent rights held by Element Biosciences covering an imaging method used in Illumina’s MiSeq benchtop sequencers.
Oxford Nanopore H1 Prelim Revenue Up 10 Percent, Short of Expectations
Oxford Nanopore Technologies reported on July 13 that its first-half revenue rose approximately 10 percent on a reported basis, though fell short of management expectations.
NIH Funding Continues Apace
NIH grant-making has kept pace with, even modestly exceeded, last year’s levels as of late June, according to Canaccord Genuity analyst Kyle Mikson, potentially allaying fears of a dramatic funding pullback.
“In February, fiscal year 2026 NIH funding was set at modestly above prior year levels,” he wrote in a July 14 note to investors. “Although concerns arose regarding the pace of grant-making in early 2026, the NIH had funded grants (~$16 billion) modestly exceeding last year’s pace as of June 20.”
Natera's Signatera Wins EU Certification for Cancer Recurrence Monitoring
Natera said that Signatera, its molecular residual disease (MRD) test for solid tumors, has received Class C certification under the European Union’s In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR). ‘
Freenome's Colorectal Cancer Test Hits All Study Endpoints, Triggers $70M Milestone
Freenome said July 9 that its updated SimpleScreen v2 colorectal cancer (CRC) blood test met all primary and secondary endpoints in a pivotal clinical validation study, with the biggest gains coming in detection of precancerous lesions rather than cancer itself.
Illumina Taps Dx Veteran Mike Sullivan as Chief Commercial Officer, Adds Top Lawyer
Illumina has named Mike Sullivan as chief commercial officer, effective July 20. The company also appointed Julie Coletti as chief legal officer.
PacBio Board Member Resigns
On July 8, 2026, Christopher Smith, a member of Pacific Biosciences’ board, notified the company of his resignation, effective immediately. “The Company is not aware of any disagreement between Smith and the Company on any matter relating to the Company’s operations, policies or practices that resulted in Smith’s resignation,” PacBio said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Personalis Gets UKCA Marking for MRD Test
Personalis announced that it has achieved UKCA (United Kingdom Conformity Assessed) marking for its NeXT Personal Dx test. Pharmaceutical companies running multi-national clinical trials can now use the minimal residual disease test across US and UK sites.
“Achieving the UKCA mark demonstrates our ability to rapidly scale our regulatory footprint into key international markets,” Personalis CEO Chris Hall, said in a statement. Link Medical Solutions will support the commercialization of the test in the UK as the exclusive distributor in that country (as well as in Norway.)
Genopore Appoints Rey Mali as CEO
Genopore, a company developing semiconductor-based nanopore technology for direct single protein molecule identification and quantification, has appointed Rey Mali as CEO. Mali joins from Accellix, acquired by BioMerieux earlier this year. At the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, she built go-to-market strategies for its bioinformatics platform. She has also held senior marketing roles at Illumina, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Twist Bioscience. Mali holds an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.
Quest to Integrate MRD, CGP Testing into Flatiron Health OncoEMR
Quest Diagnostics is integrating its Haystack MRD ctDNA test and Comprehensive Genomic Profiling services for solid tumor cancers within OncoEMR, an electronic health record (EHR) from Flatiron Health, via a pilot program with American Oncology Network (AON) and other community oncology providers.
Omega Bio-tek has introduced the Mag-Bind High Molecular Weight DNA Kit, a new magnetic bead-based DNA purification kit designed to isolate ultra-high molecular weight DNA for long-read sequencing applications. It purifies genomic DNA fragments up to 450 kb from whole blood, buffy coat, saliva, and cultured cells. The workflow supports both manual processing and automation on leading open liquid handling platforms.
Other science news
The Andean leaf-eared mouse (Phyllotis vaccarum), the world’s highest-elevation mammal, uses a combination of metabolic and genetic adaptations to survive extreme environments, according to a recent study published in Science.
The mice can be found living at elevations exceeding 6,700 meters — more than 20,000 feet! — above sea level. At these elevations, air temperatures remain almost permanently below freezing and oxygen levels are less than half of what they are at sea level, where leaf-eared mice also live.
An international team of researchers led by Jay Storz of the University of Nebraska compared animals using whole-genome data for 167 leaf-eared mice collected from locations across the species’ elevational range.
They found that high-elevation mice generated significantly more body heat and showed greater activity in both their muscles and heat-producing brown fat. Surprisingly, these mice did not rely on many of the oxygen-transport adaptations seen in other high-altitude mammals, such as changes in hemoglobin. Instead, they depend on adaptations that improve energy production, regulate blood vessels, and improve function under low-oxygen conditions.
The genomic comparisons showed widespread selection on pathways involved in detoxifying plant-derived compounds, suggesting the mice have evolved the ability to metabolize toxic plants, suggesting feeding could have a bigger impact on high-elevation adaptation than previously thought.
The authors also found that genomic structural variation does not appear to drive adaptation.
What I’m Reading
NFL training camp season is almost here, so that means it’s time to start thinking about who to draft for my fantasy football team. If you’re a degenerate like me, you may be wondering how coaching changes during the offseason will affect the players available.
Ryan Heath at Fantasy Points has done all the dirty work to identify what a new offensive coordinator can bring to a team and how it could make certain players boom (or bust.)