Evidence mapPaperPMID 41360960Full record

ArticleNature methods2025

CellSAM: a foundation model for cell segmentation.

Markus Marks, Uriah Israel, Rohit Dilip, Qilin Li, Changhua Yu, Emily Laubscher, Ahamed Iqbal, Elora Pradhan, Ada Ates, Martin Abt and 9 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature methods, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
24citing papers in PubMed
field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

24 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

19 authors.

Markus Marks *Division of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8016-1637
Uriah Israel *Division of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Rohit DilipDivision of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Qilin LiDivision of Engineering and Applied Science, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Changhua YuDivision of Biology and Biological Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Emily LaubscherDivision of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0008-0242-0507
Ahamed IqbalDivision of Biology and Biological Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Elora PradhanDivision of Biology and Biological Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Ada AtesDivision of Biology and Biological Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Martin AbtDivision of Biology and Biological Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0001-6203-0702
Caitlin BrownDivision of Biology and Biological Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Edward PaoDivision of Biology and Biological Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Shenyi LiDivision of Biology and Biological Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7191-8965
Alexander Pearson-GoulartDivision of Biology and Biological Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Pietro PeronaDivision of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Georgia GkioxariDivision of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.
Ross BarnowskiDivision of Biology and Biological Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0004-4184-8566
Yisong YueDivision of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9127-1989
David Van ValenDivision of Biology and Biological Engineering, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA. vanvalen@caltech.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7534-7621

Funding

3D Multiscale Biomolecular Human Reference Atlas Construction, Visualization and Usage [4 of 5]OT2OD033756 · OD · TRUSTEES OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY · 2022 to 2025
$3.1M
Unraveling the genetic basis of cellular behaviors with deep learning and imaging-based reverse geneticsDP2GM149556 · CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · 2025 to 2025
$811k
Computational Methods for the Study of American Sign Language Nonmanuals Using Very Large DatabasesR01DC014498 · NIDCD · OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY · PI Aleix M Martinez · 2021 to 2021
$318k
NIDCD NIH HHS R01 DC014498NIGMS NIH HHS DP2 GM149556NIH HHS OT2 OD033756NIMH NIH HHS R01 MH123612
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Cells are a fundamental unit of biological organization, and identifying them in imaging data-cell segmentation-is a critical task for various cellular imaging experiments. Although deep learning methods have led to substantial progress on this problem, most models are specialist models that work well for specific domains but cannot be applied across domains or scale well with large amounts of data. Here we present CellSAM, a universal model for cell segmentation that generalizes across diverse cellular imaging data. CellSAM builds on top of the Segment Anything Model (SAM) by developing a prompt engineering approach for mask generation. We train an object detector, CellFinder, to automatically detect cells and prompt SAM to generate segmentations. We show that this approach allows a single model to achieve human-level performance for segmenting images of mammalian cells, yeast and bacteria collected across various imaging modalities. We show that CellSAM has strong zero-shot performance and can be improved with a few examples via few-shot learning. Additionally, we demonstrate how CellSAM can be applied across diverse bioimage analysis workflows. A deployed version of CellSAM is available at https://cellsam.deepcell.org/ .

Indexed as

Image Processing, Computer-AssistedAlgorithmsAnimalsDeep LearningHumansSoftware

Identifiers

PMID41360960
PMCPMC12695629

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.