Ardigen is proud to co-organize the CVPR 2025 Workshop on Computer Vision for Drug Discovery: Where Are We and What is Beyond?, taking place on June 12, 2025, during the prestigious CVPR 2025 conference.
This workshop is an opportunity to connect cutting-edge research in computer vision and artificial intelligence with the complex, data-rich domain of drug discovery. It brings together scientists and practitioners across disciplines to explore how imaging technologies and vision-based models can contribute to understanding disease, identifying therapeutic targets, and accelerating biomedical research.
A platform for collaboration between vision and life sciences
Modern drug discovery increasingly relies on high-dimensional biological data – images from cell painting, spatial transcriptomics, and optical pooled screening – to make sense of complex cellular behaviors and molecular interactions. However, analyzing this type of data presents unique challenges that demand tailored solutions.
This workshop seeks to foster interdisciplinary innovation, combining computer vision expertise with biomedical insight. Topics will range from explainable AI and predictive modeling to techniques for dealing with sparse or noisy biological data.
For the CVPR community, the workshop represents an important opportunity to apply their knowledge in a field with tangible and far-reaching impact on human health.
Key Topics Include:
- Spatial Transcriptomics for Drug Discovery
- Cell Painting and Morphological Profiling
- Optical Pooled Screening and Functional Genomics
- Multi-modal Biomedical Imaging
- Explainable AI in Biomedical Applications
- Sparse Labelled Data Challenges
- Imaging Biomarker Discovery
- Safe and Trustworthy Computer Vision in Clinical Contexts
Confirmed Speakers
The workshop features invited talks from leaders in computational biology, biomedical engineering, and AI, including:
- Shantanu Singh – Broad Institute
- Christina S. Leslie – Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
- Juan C. Caicedo – Morgridge Institute for Research
- Jean Fan – Johns Hopkins Biomedical Engineering
- Patrick Schwab – GSK
- Peter Horvath – Szeged, Helsinki, ETH Zurich, INRIA
- Daniel Racoceanu – Sorbonne University
Their talks will address real-world challenges and opportunities at the intersection of vision and biology.
Workshop challenge: Learning representations for drug discovery
The workshop also includes a challenge, hosted on Kaggle, focused on learning representations of molecular perturbations in cellular systems using microscopy imaging data. Participants are tasked with classifying compounds based on their phenotypic effects in unseen plates and unseen cell lines, reflecting real-world variability and complexity in experimental data.
This task encourages participants to go beyond surface-level predictions and capture deeper biological meaning in their models – crucial for scalable drug discovery.
Organizing Committee:
- Dawid Rymarczyk – Ardigen,Jagiellonian University
- Ilknur Icke – Novo Nordisk
- Chao-hui Huang – Pfizer
- Gayathri Mohankumar – AstraZeneca
- Anne Carpenter – Broad Institute
Challenge Committee:
- Adriana Borowa – Ardigen
- Ana Sanchez-Fernandez – Johannes Kepler University Linz
Key Dates:
- Paper Submission Deadline: March 24, 2025
- Acceptance Notification: April 1, 2025
- Camera-Ready Deadline: April 7, 2025
- Final Program Release: May 9, 2025
- Workshop Date: June 12, 2025
Submissions will be accepted via OpenReview using the CVPR template. Papers may be original submissions or recently accepted papers from top-tier venues (CVPR, NeurIPS, ICLR, Nature, etc.).
Visit the official workshop site for full submission details and updates.
Ardigen’s role
Ardigen is committed to advancing precision medicine through responsible use of machine learning. We believe that applying computer vision to biological questions is one of the most exciting frontiers in modern science.
As co-organizers of this workshop, we are helping build a forum where experts in computer vision and life sciences can share, learn, and shape new directions in biomedical AI research.
We invite you to join us – whether you’re submitting research, participating in the challenge, or attending the sessions. Let’s bring vision to drug discovery, together.
