On April 8, 2026 Portrai, Inc. reported it will present 11 posters highlighting its artificial intelligence and spatial transcriptomics capabilities at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting 2026. The presentations will detail Portrai’s latest computational frameworks and biological findings, designed to decode the tumor microenvironment (TME) and accelerate oncology drug development.
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The research presented demonstrates the company’s scalable approach to analyzing spatial transcriptomics, addressing the computationally intensive challenges of integrating massive sample collections and overcoming batch effects. Portrai’s new technologies include a transcript-only framework for high-resolution pseudocell boundary inference, and CELLama-Perturb, a virtual cell modeling approach for mapping drug sensitivity across spatial tumor heterogeneity. Additionally, the company will showcase an ontology-guided hierarchical cell typing system powered by large language models.
A central highlight of the presentations is PortrAIgent, a novel co-scientist AI agent built for end-to-end spatial transcriptomics discovery. The AI system autonomously manages complex analysis workflows—from missing data imputation and preprocessing to pathway activity scoring and report generation—without requiring manual intervention. Testing confirms that PortrAIgent reliably lowers the expertise barrier needed to translate high-resolution data into testable biological hypotheses.
Portrai will also share translational clinical findings, including a study revealing the core resistance niches that distinguish non-major pathological response (non-MPR) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients following neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy. The spatial data maps intrinsic repair mechanisms to specific TME regions, providing a rationale for emerging combination strategies such as TROP2-directed antibody-drug conjugate(ADC) therapies.
"These 11 presentations reflect our commitment to bridging the gap between high-resolution spatial data and actionable clinical insights," said Hongyoon Choi, MD, PhD, co-founder and CTO at Portrai. "By automating complex spatial analyses and building robust foundation models, we are providing the tools necessary to understand tumor resistance and accelerate the discovery of novel precision targets."
Portrai’s abstracts and poster presentations will be available for viewing throughout the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) 2026 conference.
(Press release, Portrai, APR 8, 2026, View Source [SID1234664248])