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Harvard PhD · NSF Graduate Research Fellow

Tianhao
Luo

Building multiscale world models
to understand disease mechanisms and translate them into clinically actionable insights.

Boston, MA Harvard Biomedical AI
Tianhao Luo in a suit and University of Pennsylvania graduation stole, standing on Broad Street with Philadelphia City Hall behind him.
Currently
Building multiscale AI world models @ Mahmood Lab Building a stealth AI startup in healthcare & precision medicine Based in Boston · Open to collaborators Building multiscale AI world models @ Mahmood Lab Building a stealth AI startup in healthcare & precision medicine Based in Boston · Open to collaborators
Tianhao Luo in Paris, on the balustraded landing of an ornate gilded hall with marble columns, chandeliers, and painted ceilings.

At the intersection of
AI & biomedicine

I am a Harvard PhD student in Biomedical Informatics working at the frontier of AI for science and biomedical AI. My interests span AI for spatial omics, cells, and electronic health records — and, running through all of them, the idea of a multiscale world model that reasons from the molecular to the tissue to the patient scale.

I am also interested in entrepreneurship and in how biomedical AI actually reaches patients. Previously, I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with triple degrees in Statistics (Wharton), Mathematics, and Computational Biology. Beyond the lab, I am a violinist of 13 years and an avid runner.

Recent Updates Live

May 2026
Paper Accepted

PATCH — our paper on uncertainty quantification for spatial proteomics — was accepted to the Agentic Uncertainty workshop at ICML 2026. Excited to share the work and meet folks in Seoul this July!

Apr 2026
Fellowship

Awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP) with a focus on AI for Life Sciences. Grateful to advisors, collaborators, and reviewers!

Apr 2026
New Role

Started a stealth AI startup at the intersection of AI, healthcare, and precision medicine — more details coming soon.

Mar 2026
New Role

Joined Dr. Faisal Mahmood's lab at Harvard Medical School / BWH to work on multi-modal foundation models for AI virtual patients.

Academic Foundation

Harvard University coat of arms: a crimson shield bearing three books lettered VE-RI-TAS. Harvard Medical School logo: a crimson shield beside the words Harvard Medical School.

Harvard Medical School

2025 — Present

PhD in Biomedical Informatics

Bioinformatics & Integrative Genomics (BIG) Program

Thesis advisor: Faisal Mahmood

University of Pennsylvania logo: the Penn shield beside the wordmark Penn, University of Pennsylvania. The Wharton School logo: the Penn shield beside the wordmark Wharton, University of Pennsylvania.

University of Pennsylvania

2021 — 2025

B.S. Statistics, The Wharton School

B.A. Mathematics & Computational Biology, College of Arts & Sciences

Summa Cum Laude · Beta Gamma Sigma

Minors in Computer Science & Data Science

Research Experiences

Selected experiences developing biomedical AI — multi-modal foundation models, virtual cells, and virtual patients — across Harvard, Penn, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and Cedars-Sinai.

Mar 2026 –
Present

Dr. Faisal Mahmood · Harvard Medical School / BWH
Foundation Models
Dec 2025 –
Mar 2026

Drs. Omar Abudayyeh & Jonathan Gootenberg · Harvard Medical School
Single-CellAgents & Generative
Sep 2025 –
Dec 2025

Dr. Kun-Hsing Yu · Harvard University
Spatial OmicsAgents & Generative1 output
Apr 2025 –
Aug 2025

Dr. Pranav Rajpurkar · Harvard University
Single-Cell
Sep 2022 –
May 2025

Dr. Mingyao Li · University of Pennsylvania
Foundation ModelsSpatial Omics4 outputs
Aug 2023 –
May 2025

Dr. Brian Gregory · University of Pennsylvania
Genomics
Jun 2023 –
Aug 2023

Dr. Peter Koo · Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (NSF REU)
Single-Cell1 output
May 2022 –
Aug 2022

Dr. Jason Moore · Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Genomics1 output

Professional Experience

Machine Learning Fellow
OpenAI
Aug 2025 — Present · Remote

Advancing reproducibility standards for state-of-the-art ML research through rigorous evaluation rubrics and model assessments.

OpenAI logo: the interlocking knot symbol beside the OpenAI wordmark.
AI Fellow
Pathcision Medicine
Nov 2025 — May 2026

Built AI models for protein binder design and binding affinity prediction, supporting structure-based therapeutic discovery.

Pathcision
Summer VC Fellow, Life Science
LiquidMetal Ventures
Jun 2025 — Aug 2025 · Boston, MA

Due diligence on AI-driven drug discovery startups; organizing expert salons at the Boston-Cambridge biotech hub.

LiquidMetal Ventures logo: a teal faceted cube beside the LiquidMetal Ventures wordmark.

Startups & Entrepreneurial Work

As a Harvard PhD student and founder, I build AI startups at the intersection of biomedicine and science — applying generative models and foundation models to real human-health problems.

MedJourney

Founder · Jul 2025 – Present

AI-powered voice-first companion for Alzheimer's patients. AdventureX 1st Prize winner; Meiling Scientist Fellowship.

Stealth AI Startup

Founder · 2026 – Present

Applying generative models and foundation models to healthcare and precision medicine — turning biological data into therapies and decisions tailored to the individual patient. More details coming soon.

Selected Works

Yuan, M., Jin, K., Yan, H., Luo, T. et al. Designing Smart Spatial Omics Experiments with S2Omics. (2025) Accepted at Nature Cell Biology.
Freda, P.J., Ghosh, A., Luo, T., et al. Automated quantitative trait locus analysis (AutoQTL). BioData Mining 16, 14 (2023). doi:10.1186/s13040-023-00331-3
Luo, T. & Koo, P. Deciphering the Genetic Code behind Single-Cell Chromatin Accessibility: Interpreting scBasset (2023). [Poster] Research Exposition, University of Pennsylvania.
Luo, T. & Li, M. Integrating Foundation Models to Address Batch Effects in Spatial Transcriptomics Analysis (2024).
  • Poster at MidAtlantic Bioinformatics Conference
  • Poster at Harvard Quantitative Genomics Conference
  • Oral Presentation at Rice University Gulf Coast Symposium

Instruction

Department of Statistics, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Let's connect

Open to research collaborations, startup conversations, and new connections.

Line illustration of Tianhao Luo playing the violin. Below the waist the figure resolves downward through the scales of biology — tissue architecture, then individual cells, then a molecular lattice — while the arc of the bow continues as a single trace threading through every scale.