Bioptimus Announces STELA: The World's Largest Clinically Linked Spatial Biology Atlas

Bioptimus announced the launch of its Spatial Tissue Embedding Learning Atlas, known as STELA. The multinational spatial data generation initiative is anchored by partnerships with 10x Genomics and Broad Clinical Labs. STELA aims to profile up to 100,000 patient tissue specimens across the United States, Europe, and Asia. This represents approximately a 20-fold increase in scale over existing spatial biology atlases. The project will integrate spatial transcriptomics, pathology imaging, multi-omics data, and longitudinal clinical records. The data generated will serve as the backbone for M-Optimus, the multimodal and multiscale world model of biology developed by Bioptimus. Participating institutions will follow standardized protocols and gain access to rich spatial characterization and foundation model capabilities. Jean Philippe Vert, co-founder and chief executive officer of Bioptimus, said the initiative envisions patients contributing insights to better inform care for future patients. Serge Saxonov, chief executive officer and co-founder of 10x Genomics, said the datasets will allow researchers to connect underlying biology with disease outcomes. Niall Lennon, chief scientific officer of Broad Clinical Labs, said the collaboration pairs massive-scale data generation with uncompromising data quality.