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Rachel Thomas, PhD

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A Decade of Writing Stuff That People, To My Surprise, Actually Read As a former mathematician, I was used to nobody reading what I wrote. So when I first began blogging...
17th Nov 2025
1

A Decade of Writing Stuff That People, To My Surprise, Actually Read

from Rachel Thomas, PhD [alt+shift+b] in AI

17th Nov 2025
As a former mathematician, I was used to nobody reading what I wrote. So when I first began blogging in 2015, I never expected that several of my blog posts would go viral or to have multiple journalists contact me (including from NPR, Wired, and Fortune), make the front page of...
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Scientists Just Connected the Dots Between Viruses and… Everything Most people catch many viruses in their lives– for example, over 90% of adults have Epstein-Barr...
6th Oct 2025
1

Scientists Just Connected the Dots Between Viruses and… Everything

from Rachel Thomas, PhD [alt+shift+b] in AI

6th Oct 2025
Most people catch many viruses in their lives– for example, over 90% of adults have Epstein-Barr virus, and adults catch the flu about once every 5 years. For a long time, catching frequent viruses was considered both inevitable and harmless. But it turns out that common,...
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Deep learning gets the glory, deep fact checking gets ignored Deep learning is glamorous and highly rewarded. If you train and evaluate a Transformer (a...
3rd Jun 2025
1

Deep learning gets the glory, deep fact checking gets ignored

from Rachel Thomas, PhD [alt+shift+b] in AI

3rd Jun 2025
Deep learning is glamorous and highly rewarded. If you train and evaluate a Transformer (a state-of-the-art language model) on a dataset of 22 million enzymes and then use it to predict the function of 450 unknown enzymes, you can publish your results in Nature Communications (a...
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Will gene sequencing finally prove its worth? DNA sequencing hasn’t lived up to the hype Twenty to thirty years ago, politicians, scientific...
12th May 2025
1

Will gene sequencing finally prove its worth?

from Rachel Thomas, PhD [alt+shift+b] in AI

12th May 2025
DNA sequencing hasn’t lived up to the hype Twenty to thirty years ago, politicians, scientific leaders, journalists, and even Nobel laureates predicted that sequencing the human genome would revolutionize how we treat disease. And while the advances in DNA sequencing that have...
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What AI can tell us about microscope slides The lavender images below show breast tissue. There are many questions doctors could want to answer...
15th Jan 2025
1

What AI can tell us about microscope slides

from Rachel Thomas, PhD [alt+shift+b] in AI

15th Jan 2025
The lavender images below show breast tissue. There are many questions doctors could want to answer using these images: They could want to know whether there are tumors present or not. If there is a tumor, doctors would want to classify its stage, make predictions about how...
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5 Devious Tricks Pathogens Use Against Us “The human immune system is amazing, with an impressive range of techniques to protect against...
11th Nov 2024
1

5 Devious Tricks Pathogens Use Against Us

from Rachel Thomas, PhD [alt+shift+b] in AI

11th Nov 2024
“The human immune system is amazing, with an impressive range of techniques to protect against invaders.” I see this sentiment expressed frequently by everyone from doctors quoted in newspaper articles to online commentators in parenting groups. And I share it– I loved learning...
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In defense of screen time My daughter is constantly creating– her passions include making art, writing fiction, coding...
28th Oct 2024
1

In defense of screen time

from Rachel Thomas, PhD [alt+shift+b] in AI

28th Oct 2024
My daughter is constantly creating– her passions include making art, writing fiction, coding interactive games, and composing music. Yet, I regularly see news articles and media pundits suggesting that my husband and I are doing things all wrong. The reason for these claims? My...
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Gaps and Risks of AI in the Life Sciences AI is being used to tackle high-impact scientific problems, including searching for new antibiotics...
9th Sep 2024
1

Gaps and Risks of AI in the Life Sciences

from Rachel Thomas, PhD [alt+shift+b] in AI

9th Sep 2024
AI is being used to tackle high-impact scientific problems, including searching for new antibiotics to combat antibiotic-resistance and predicting what foreign substances the immune system can recognize as invaders. Amidst the excitement, it is important to keep in mind the gaps...
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Your Immune System is Not a Muscle That which doesn’t kill you… Some people compare the immune system to a muscle, suggesting that the...
12th Aug 2024
1

Your Immune System is Not a Muscle

from Rachel Thomas, PhD [alt+shift+b] in AI

12th Aug 2024
That which doesn’t kill you… Some people compare the immune system to a muscle, suggesting that the more you use it, the stronger it gets. Who doesn’t love an analogy? But is this one accurate? We can see that not all obstacles make you stronger. Destroy the cartilage in your...
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Decoding T cells with AI I’m studying the intersection of AI and immunology, two notoriously jargon-heavy fields – but it’s...
8th Jul 2024
1

Decoding T cells with AI

from Rachel Thomas, PhD [alt+shift+b] in AI

8th Jul 2024
I’m studying the intersection of AI and immunology, two notoriously jargon-heavy fields – but it’s important that scientists share their work with a broader audience. This 3-part series is an experiment: an accessible introduction to AI immunology concepts. This post is part 1 in...
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