Cited by 162Machine Learning in HealthcareExplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)Computational Drug Discovery Methods

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 17 of the 18 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 19 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Visible Machine Learning for Biomedicine

Open access

Abstract

A major ambition of artificial intelligence lies in translating patient data to successful therapies. Machine learning models face particular challenges in biomedicine, however, including handling of extreme data heterogeneity and lack of mechanistic insight into predictions. Here, we argue for “visible” approaches that guide model structure with experimental biology.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

The paper argues that current black-box machine learning is intrinsically limited in biomedicine by extreme data heterogeneity and lack of mechanistic interpretation, and proposes “visible” machine learning guided by biological structure. It outlines examples and near-term milestones for interpretable, mechanism-aware biomedical models.

Key findings

  • Current machine learning faces two acute biomedical challenges: input heterogeneity, where the same outcome can arise from vastly different inputs (e.g., cancer from many rare combinations of genetic alterations), and black-box predictions that do not link outputs to underlying mechanisms.
  • Brute-force data scaling is limited because patient numbers are finite; even common conditions like cancer and heart disease may saturate at “a few million patient examples,” which the authors argue is modest compared with the data needs of complex biological systems.
  • Visible learning uses prior biological structure—such as molecular networks and hierarchical cell/tissue organization—to guide model architecture, potentially addressing heterogeneity through biologically meaningful compression and enabling mechanistic interpretation of internal model states.
  • Examples cited include Lin et al. (2017), who structured a deep neural network based on hierarchical organization of transcriptional regulatory factors; DCell (Ma et al., 2018), which maps neurons to biological modules to translate mutated genes to cell proliferation; and Alvarez et al. (2016), who used a transcriptional regulatory network to infer regulatory protein activities from mRNA expression.

Methods

  • This is a commentary/perspective, not an empirical study; no new dataset, sample, or statistical analysis is reported.
  • The argument synthesizes prior literature and examples from machine learning and computational biology to propose visible machine learning and near-term milestones.

Limitations

  • The paper states limitations of current black-box machine learning: data heterogeneity, lack of mechanistic insight, finite patient datasets, and a trade-off between increased model resolution and model scope.
  • As a commentary, it presents no primary validation, quantitative benchmarks, or systematic review; its proposals and milestones are not empirically tested here (evident from the text).
  • The paper also notes that literature curation is difficult and misses unknown human biology, and that basic experimental data types are not usually well connected to patient-data analysis.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.cell.2018.05.056

Cites

17 of 17 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 of 19 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged

Show all 15 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 10
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 1
10 of 10
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Biological systems are almost certainly more complex than those addressed by machine learning in other areas.

    “Although such input heterogeneity is a property of many and perhaps all complex systems, biological systems are almost certainly more complex than those addressed by machine learning in other areas.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The total number of patients is finite.

    “The total number of patients is finite, however.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Causal mechanistic insights are key to identifying drug targets and advancing basic biological knowledge.

    “This is a missed opportunity, as causal mechanistic insights are key to identifying drug targets and advancing basic biological knowledge.”
3 of 3

Claims other papers make about this one

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Citations

Cites

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Show all 18 references

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Cited by

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Items 101–162 of 162

Metadata

Authors
Yu, M. K., Ma, J., Fisher, J., Kreisberg, J. F., Raphael, B. J., & Ideker, T.
Affiliations
  • University of California San Diego (US)
  • University of Cambridge (GB)
  • Princeton University (US)
Corresponding author
  • Raphael, Benjamin J.
  • Ideker, Trey
Venue
Cell
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2018-06
Volume
173
Issue
7
Pages
1562-1565
ISSN
0092-8674 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2808686685
Cited by
162
References
18
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 23 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 2
FWCI
10.71
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Cell (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
National Institutes of Health (R01 HG009979, R01 HG007069, U24 CA211000, P41 GM103504, OT3 TR002026)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Machine Learning in Healthcare
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)
  • Life Sciences › Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics › Drug Discovery › Computational Drug Discovery Methods
Keywords
model interpretability, data heterogeneity
MeSH terms
Machine Learning, Algorithms, Computational Biology, Biomedical Research

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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-10-10, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).

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