arXiv subjects

Alexandre Hutton

Publications and source records attributed to Alexandre Hutton.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Omics Data Discovery Agents: Agent-Supported Retrieval, Reanalysis, and Synthesis of Published Omics Data

The biomedical literature contains a vast collection of omics studies, yet most published data remain functionally inaccessible for computational reuse. When raw data are deposited in public repositories, essential information for reproducing reported results is dispersed across main text, supplementary files, and code repositories, and in the rarer cases where intermediate data (e.g. protein abundance files) are shared, their location is irregular. Here we present an agentic framework for the agent-supported retrieval, reanalysis, and synthesis of published omics data. The system employs large language model (LLM) agents with access to tools for fetching omics studies, extracting article metadata, identifying and downloading published data, executing containerized quantification pipelines, and synthesizing results across studies. Applied at corpus scale, the pipeline cataloged dataset references across thousands of PubMed Central articles; we report these as descriptive system outputs rather than as a validated measure of extraction accuracy. Using model context protocol (MCP) servers to expose containerized analysis tools, the agents retrieved and re-quantified data in five end-to-end reanalyses spanning data-dependent and data-independent proteomics and bulk RNA-seq. All five reanalyses completed, each with documented human guidance and workflow accommodations, and reproduced the authors' deposited abundances with high per-sample correlation (0.85-0.997) and strongly concordant differentially expressed features (fold-change Spearman 0.88-0.91), with no direction reversals among features called differentially expressed in both analyses; residual differences in significant-feature lists were attributable to threshold placement, tool-version, and preprocessing differences rather than to the underlying quantities.

q-bio.GN↗

arXiv2025

Trajectory Inference for Single Cell Omics

Trajectory inference is used to order single-cell omics data along a path that reflects a continuous transition between cells. This approach is useful for studying processes like cell differentiation, where a stem cell matures into a specialized cell type, or investigating state changes in pathological conditions. In the current article, we provide a general introduction to trajectory inference, explaining the concepts and assumptions underlying the different methods. We then briefly discuss the strengths and weaknesses of different trajectory inference methods. We also describe best practices for using trajectory inference, such as how to validate the results and how to interpret them in the context of biological knowledge. Finally, the article highlights some applications of trajectory inference in single-cell omics research. These applications include studying cell differentiation, development, and disease.

q-bio.QM↗

arXiv2024

A Robust Ensemble Algorithm for Ischemic Stroke Lesion Segmentation: Generalizability and Clinical Utility Beyond the ISLES Challenge

Diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) is essential for stroke diagnosis, treatment decisions, and prognosis. However, image and disease variability hinder the development of generalizable AI algorithms with clinical value. We address this gap by presenting a novel ensemble algorithm derived from the 2022 Ischemic Stroke Lesion Segmentation (ISLES) challenge. ISLES'22 provided 400 patient scans with ischemic stroke from various medical centers, facilitating the development of a wide range of cutting-edge segmentation algorithms by the research community. Through collaboration with leading teams, we combined top-performing algorithms into an ensemble model that overcomes the limitations of individual solutions. Our ensemble model achieved superior ischemic lesion detection and segmentation accuracy on our internal test set compared to individual algorithms. This accuracy generalized well across diverse image and disease variables. Furthermore, the model excelled in extracting clinical biomarkers. Notably, in a Turing-like test, neuroradiologists consistently preferred the algorithm's segmentations over manual expert efforts, highlighting increased comprehensiveness and precision. Validation using a real-world external dataset (N=1686) confirmed the model's generalizability. The algorithm's outputs also demonstrated strong correlations with clinical scores (admission NIHSS and 90-day mRS) on par with or exceeding expert-derived results, underlining its clinical relevance. This study offers two key findings. First, we present an ensemble algorithm (https://github.com/Tabrisrei/ISLES22_Ensemble) that detects and segments ischemic stroke lesions on DWI across diverse scenarios on par with expert (neuro)radiologists. Second, we show the potential for biomedical challenge outputs to extend beyond the challenge's initial objectives, demonstrating their real-world clinical applicability.

eess.IV↗

arXiv2020

Deploying large fixed file datasets with SquashFS and Singularity

Shared high-performance computing (HPC) platforms, such as those provided by XSEDE and Compute Canada, enable researchers to carry out large-scale computational experiments at a fraction of the cost of the cloud. Most systems require the use of distributed filesystems (e.g. Lustre) for providing a highly multi-user, large capacity storage environment. These suffer performance penalties as the number of files increases due to network contention and metadata performance. We demonstrate how a combination of two technologies, Singularity and SquashFS, can help developers, integrators, architects, and scientists deploy large datasets (O(10M) files) on these shared systems with minimal performance limitations. The proposed integration enables more efficient access and indexing than normal file-based dataset installations, while providing transparent file access to users and processes. Furthermore, the approach does not require administrative privileges on the target system. While the examples studied here have been taken from the field of neuroimaging, the technologies adopted are not specific to that field. Currently, this solution is limited to read-only datasets. We propose the adoption of this technology for the consumption and dissemination of community datasets across shared computing resources.

cs.DC↗