Round-Up 2025: What's new in the ASCEND platform

Expanded data source coverage in Conversational AI (CAI) assistant

• Clinical trial data from clinicaltrials.gov: Clinical trial results are essential for building a comprehensive understanding of therapeutic mechanisms in any preclinical research project. It plays a critical role in identifying disease trends, evaluating the safety and efficacy of treatments, and informing future research directions. In CAI, discover evidence from relevant published literature and clinicaltrial.gov data in the same conversation, uncovering areas where there are connections between clinical findings and published literature. Read more about all evidence sources in CAI.
• Tissue expression data from Human Protein Atlas (HPA): Discover insights regarding protein expression across various human tissues. We've ingested approximately 137,000 associations covering protein expression across 35+ tissues, providing critical insights to identify expression of potential targets in relevant tissues. Evidence and insights from HPA will appear alongside publication data in the evidence cards. Read more about HPA data in CAI.
• Cancer prognostic biomarker data from Human Protein Atlas (HPA): Find insights from over 10,000 genes across 20+ different cancer types, such as Kidney Renal Clear Cell Carcinoma and Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma. This data, derived from HPA's analysis of mRNA expression in relation to cancer patient survival, helps you quickly identify clinically relevant biomarkers specifically associated with cancer prognosis. Read more about HPA data in CAI.

Improved Conversational AI (CAI) experience

• Refreshed CAI homepage: More intuitive and streamlined experience for scientists to discover and access features across ASCEND.
• Updated answer structure: Section headings help readability and organization, making it easier for scientists to navigate the insights and cited evidence. 
• Introduced real-time visibility into answer generation: This increased transparency will provide you with an understanding of what is happening in the background while the user waits for an answer to be generated.
• Introduced Project Summaries: Easily collect and synthesize key evidence from different conversations into a single summary that can be exported/shared with colleagues. Save references and conversations into customizable project folders. Read more about project summaries.

Enhanced product coverage and filtering in Selector

• More RNAi data: Expanded catalog by 20% (>4 million) to support siRNA, shRNA, and miRNA selection and experiment design.
• Protocol data in Selector: When available, method/protocol information can be found on the Product Page or the Figure Results pertaining to a reagent. Details are available in the Method Data tab on a product page. Here, filters can be applied to identify the most relevant method information (such as the cell type used in the experiment). Read more about protocols/methods data in Selector.
• Added Organoid cell products from vendors such as ATCC and STEMCELL Technologies that can be filtered by under Culture Properties.
• Added Membrane Preparations as a Cell Product Type filter to help streamline your search. Membrane Preparations include cell membranes prepared from cell lines/primary cells that are generally used to study membrane proteins in binding and functional analyses.