For gene-knockout prediction in a small number of cell lines, complex models can overfit, particularly when effects are subtle, making a linear baseline useful.

“But for, I think even nowadays, if you go in a simple, a few cell lines and you have sort of, uh, um, gene knockouts, then particularly when the effects are a bit subtle or these sort of more complex models are sometimes a bit over fitting, and that's why linear baseline is always very good.”