_version_ 1866918045366091776
author Shaban, Muhammad
Chang, Yuzhou
Qiu, Huaying
Yeo, Yao Yu
Song, Andrew H.
Jaume, Guillaume
Wang, Yuchen
Weishaupt, Luca L.
Ding, Tong
Vaidya, Anurag
Lamane, Abdallah
Shao, Daniel
Zidane, Mohammed
Bai, Yunhao
McCallum, Paige
Luo, Shuli
Wu, Wenrui
Wang, Yang
Cramer, Precious
Chan, Chi Ngai
Stephan, Pierre
Schaffenrath, Johanna
Lee, Jia Le
Michel, Hendrik A.
Tian, Caiwei
Almagro-Perez, Cristina
Wagner, Sophia J.
Sahai, Sharifa
Lu, Ming Y.
Chen, Richard J.
Zhang, Andrew
Gonzales, Mark Edward M.
Makky, Ahmad
Lee, Jia-Ying Joey
Cheng, Hao
Ahmar, Nourhan El
Matar, Sayed
Haist, Maximilian
Phillips, Darci
Tan, Yuqi
Nolan, Garry P.
Burack, W. Richard
Estes, Jacob D.
Liu, Jonathan T. C.
Choueiri, Toni K
Agarwal, Neeraj
Barry, Marc
Rodig, Scott J.
Le, Long Phi
Gerber, Georg
Schürch, Christian M.
Theis, Fabian J.
Kim, Youn H
Yeong, Joe
Signoretti, Sabina
Howitt, Brooke E.
Loo, Lit-Hsin
Ma, Qin
Jiang, Sizun
Mahmood, Faisal
author_facet Shaban, Muhammad
Chang, Yuzhou
Qiu, Huaying
Yeo, Yao Yu
Song, Andrew H.
Jaume, Guillaume
Wang, Yuchen
Weishaupt, Luca L.
Ding, Tong
Vaidya, Anurag
Lamane, Abdallah
Shao, Daniel
Zidane, Mohammed
Bai, Yunhao
McCallum, Paige
Luo, Shuli
Wu, Wenrui
Wang, Yang
Cramer, Precious
Chan, Chi Ngai
Stephan, Pierre
Schaffenrath, Johanna
Lee, Jia Le
Michel, Hendrik A.
Tian, Caiwei
Almagro-Perez, Cristina
Wagner, Sophia J.
Sahai, Sharifa
Lu, Ming Y.
Chen, Richard J.
Zhang, Andrew
Gonzales, Mark Edward M.
Makky, Ahmad
Lee, Jia-Ying Joey
Cheng, Hao
Ahmar, Nourhan El
Matar, Sayed
Haist, Maximilian
Phillips, Darci
Tan, Yuqi
Nolan, Garry P.
Burack, W. Richard
Estes, Jacob D.
Liu, Jonathan T. C.
Choueiri, Toni K
Agarwal, Neeraj
Barry, Marc
Rodig, Scott J.
Le, Long Phi
Gerber, Georg
Schürch, Christian M.
Theis, Fabian J.
Kim, Youn H
Yeong, Joe
Signoretti, Sabina
Howitt, Brooke E.
Loo, Lit-Hsin
Ma, Qin
Jiang, Sizun
Mahmood, Faisal
contents Foundation models have begun to transform image analysis by acting as pretrained generalist backbones that can be adapted to many tasks even when post-training data are limited, yet their impact on spatial proteomics, imaging that maps proteins at single-cell resolution, remains limited. Here, we introduce KRONOS, a foundation model built for spatial proteomics. KRONOS was trained in a self-supervised manner on over 47 million image patches covering 175 protein markers, 16 tissue types, and 8 fluorescence-based imaging platforms. We introduce key architectural adaptations to address the high-dimensional, multi-channel, and heterogeneous nature of multiplex imaging. We demonstrate that KRONOS learns biologically meaningful representations across multiple scales, ranging from cellular and microenvironment to tissue levels, enabling it to address diverse downstream tasks, including cell phenotyping, region classification, and patient stratification. Evaluated across 11 independent cohorts, KRONOS achieves state-of-the-art performance across cell phenotyping, treatment response prediction, and retrieval tasks, and is highly data-efficient. KRONOS also introduces the paradigm of segmentation-free patch-level processing for efficient and scalable spatial proteomics analysis, allowing cross-institutional comparisons, and as an image reverse search engine for spatial patterns. Together, these results position KRONOS as a flexible and scalable tool for spatial proteomics. The model is publicly accessible at https://github.com/mahmoodlab/KRONOS.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_03373
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Foundation Model for Spatial Proteomics
Shaban, Muhammad
Chang, Yuzhou
Qiu, Huaying
Yeo, Yao Yu
Song, Andrew H.
Jaume, Guillaume
Wang, Yuchen
Weishaupt, Luca L.
Ding, Tong
Vaidya, Anurag
Lamane, Abdallah
Shao, Daniel
Zidane, Mohammed
Bai, Yunhao
McCallum, Paige
Luo, Shuli
Wu, Wenrui
Wang, Yang
Cramer, Precious
Chan, Chi Ngai
Stephan, Pierre
Schaffenrath, Johanna
Lee, Jia Le
Michel, Hendrik A.
Tian, Caiwei
Almagro-Perez, Cristina
Wagner, Sophia J.
Sahai, Sharifa
Lu, Ming Y.
Chen, Richard J.
Zhang, Andrew
Gonzales, Mark Edward M.
Makky, Ahmad
Lee, Jia-Ying Joey
Cheng, Hao
Ahmar, Nourhan El
Matar, Sayed
Haist, Maximilian
Phillips, Darci
Tan, Yuqi
Nolan, Garry P.
Burack, W. Richard
Estes, Jacob D.
Liu, Jonathan T. C.
Choueiri, Toni K
Agarwal, Neeraj
Barry, Marc
Rodig, Scott J.
Le, Long Phi
Gerber, Georg
Schürch, Christian M.
Theis, Fabian J.
Kim, Youn H
Yeong, Joe
Signoretti, Sabina
Howitt, Brooke E.
Loo, Lit-Hsin
Ma, Qin
Jiang, Sizun
Mahmood, Faisal
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Foundation models have begun to transform image analysis by acting as pretrained generalist backbones that can be adapted to many tasks even when post-training data are limited, yet their impact on spatial proteomics, imaging that maps proteins at single-cell resolution, remains limited. Here, we introduce KRONOS, a foundation model built for spatial proteomics. KRONOS was trained in a self-supervised manner on over 47 million image patches covering 175 protein markers, 16 tissue types, and 8 fluorescence-based imaging platforms. We introduce key architectural adaptations to address the high-dimensional, multi-channel, and heterogeneous nature of multiplex imaging. We demonstrate that KRONOS learns biologically meaningful representations across multiple scales, ranging from cellular and microenvironment to tissue levels, enabling it to address diverse downstream tasks, including cell phenotyping, region classification, and patient stratification. Evaluated across 11 independent cohorts, KRONOS achieves state-of-the-art performance across cell phenotyping, treatment response prediction, and retrieval tasks, and is highly data-efficient. KRONOS also introduces the paradigm of segmentation-free patch-level processing for efficient and scalable spatial proteomics analysis, allowing cross-institutional comparisons, and as an image reverse search engine for spatial patterns. Together, these results position KRONOS as a flexible and scalable tool for spatial proteomics. The model is publicly accessible at https://github.com/mahmoodlab/KRONOS.
title A Foundation Model for Spatial Proteomics
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.03373