diff --git a/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/pyproject.toml b/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/pyproject.toml
index fb77cb7994..4efd56a76f 100644
--- a/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/pyproject.toml
+++ b/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/pyproject.toml
@@ -14,7 +14,6 @@ dependencies = [
     # bionemo sub-packages
     'bionemo-core',
     'bionemo-llm',
-    'bionemo-testing',  # needed for getting the tokenizer from NGC
     # external
     'cellxgene_census',
 ]
diff --git a/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/scripts/README.md b/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/scripts/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..c5bf8c8fec
--- /dev/null
+++ b/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/scripts/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+# WARNING
+This folder contains one-off eval scripts that may not run and are not actively tested or kept up to date.
+Also these scripts may depend on `bionemo-testing` which is generally not allowed.
diff --git a/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/src/bionemo/geneformer/scripts/geneformer_mlm_loss_eval.py b/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/scripts/geneformer_mlm_loss_eval.py
similarity index 100%
rename from sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/src/bionemo/geneformer/scripts/geneformer_mlm_loss_eval.py
rename to sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/scripts/geneformer_mlm_loss_eval.py
diff --git a/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/src/bionemo/geneformer/data/singlecell/dataset.py b/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/src/bionemo/geneformer/data/singlecell/dataset.py
index 50d0315971..2470192cc3 100644
--- a/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/src/bionemo/geneformer/data/singlecell/dataset.py
+++ b/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/src/bionemo/geneformer/data/singlecell/dataset.py
@@ -15,6 +15,8 @@
 
 
 import json
+import random
+import time
 from pathlib import Path
 from typing import Any, Dict, Optional, Sequence, Tuple
 
@@ -22,9 +24,12 @@
 import torch
 from nemo.utils import logging
 from torch.utils.data import Dataset
+from tqdm import tqdm
 
+from bionemo.core.data.load import load
 from bionemo.core.data.multi_epoch_dataset import EpochIndex
 from bionemo.core.utils import random_utils
+from bionemo.geneformer.data.singlecell.preprocess import GeneformerPreprocess
 from bionemo.geneformer.data.singlecell.utils import sample_or_truncate
 from bionemo.geneformer.tokenizer.gene_tokenizer import GeneTokenizer
 from bionemo.llm.data import masking, types
@@ -216,6 +221,25 @@ def __getitem__(self, index: EpochIndex) -> types.BertSample:
         )
 
 
+def _gather_medians(
+    gene_names: np.ndarray,
+    gene_data: np.ndarray,
+    normalize: bool,
+    vocab: dict[str, int],
+    gene_median: dict[str, float],
+) -> tuple[np.ndarray, np.ndarray, np.ndarray]:
+    """Filter out genes that are not in the provided tokenizer vocab, and tokenize the gene names."""
+    genes, tokens, medians = [], [], []
+    for tok, gene in zip(gene_names, gene_data):
+        if tok in vocab:
+            tokens.append(vocab[tok])
+            genes.append(gene)
+            if normalize:
+                med = gene_median[tok]  # If not in the dictionary we default to no normalization (1)
+                medians.append(med)
+    return np.asarray(genes), np.asarray(tokens), np.asarray(medians)
+
+
 def process_item(  # noqa: D417
     gene_data: np.ndarray,
     gene_idxs: np.ndarray,
@@ -271,27 +295,21 @@ def process_item(  # noqa: D417
     if eos_token is not None:
         max_len = max_len - 1  # - minus 1 for [EOS] token
 
-    gene_names = [feature_ids[idx] for idx in gene_idxs]
-    genes, tokens, medians = [], [], []
-    for tok, gene in zip(gene_names, gene_data):
-        if tok in tokenizer.vocab:
-            tokens.append(tokenizer.token_to_id(tok))
-            genes.append(gene)
-            if normalize:
-                med = gene_median.get(tok, 1)  # If not in the dictionary we default to no normalization (1)
-                medians.append(med)
+    gene_names = feature_ids[gene_idxs]
 
-    genes = np.asarray(genes)
-    token_ids = np.asarray(tokens)
-    medians = np.asarray(medians)
+    gene_expression_cell, token_ids, gene_expression_medians = _gather_medians(
+        gene_names, gene_data, normalize, tokenizer.vocab, gene_median
+    )
 
     if normalize:
         # re-order according to expression median normalized rank. descending order.
 
-        genes = genes / genes.sum() * target_sum
-        genes = genes / medians.astype(float)
-        idxs = np.argsort(-genes)  # sort in descending order so that the 0th position is the highest value.
-        genes = genes[idxs]
+        gene_expression_cell = gene_expression_cell / gene_expression_cell.sum() * target_sum
+        gene_expression_cell = gene_expression_cell / gene_expression_medians.astype(float)
+        idxs = np.argsort(
+            -gene_expression_cell
+        )  # sort in descending order so that the 0th position is the highest value.
+        gene_expression_cell = gene_expression_cell[idxs]
         token_ids = token_ids[idxs]
 
     # - select max_len subset, set sample to false so it doesnt permute the already rank ordered expression values.
@@ -327,3 +345,33 @@ def process_item(  # noqa: D417
             "loss_mask": loss_mask,
             "is_random": torch.zeros_like(masked_tokens, dtype=torch.int64),
         }
+
+
+def _profile_sc_dataset():
+    data_path = load("single_cell/testdata-20240506") / "cellxgene_2023-12-15_small" / "processed_data" / "train"
+    preprocessor = GeneformerPreprocess(
+        download_directory=data_path,
+        medians_file_path=data_path / "medians.json",
+        tokenizer_vocab_path=data_path / "geneformer.vocab",
+    )
+    match preprocessor.preprocess():
+        case {"tokenizer": tokenizer, "median_dict": median_dict}:
+            logging.info("*************** Preprocessing Finished ************")
+        case _:
+            logging.error("Preprocessing failed.")
+    scd = SingleCellDataset(data_path=data_path, tokenizer=tokenizer, median_dict=median_dict, max_len=2048, seed=321)
+    n_epochs = 1
+    len_dataset: int = len(scd)
+    idxs = list(range(len_dataset * n_epochs))
+    random.seed(315)
+    random.shuffle(idxs)
+    start = time.monotonic()  # Like time.time() but uses the CPU clock rather so subsequent calls will progress.
+    for i in tqdm(idxs):
+        _ = scd[EpochIndex(idx=i % len_dataset, epoch=i // len_dataset)]
+    stop = time.monotonic()
+    print(f"Processed {len_dataset * n_epochs} rows in {stop - start} seconds")
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    # python -m bionemo.geneformer.data.singlecell.dataset will run this profile.
+    _profile_sc_dataset()
diff --git a/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/tests/bionemo/geneformer/scripts/test_pydantic_train.py b/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/tests/bionemo/geneformer/scripts/test_pydantic_train.py
index f76682fbc0..b7a4280017 100644
--- a/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/tests/bionemo/geneformer/scripts/test_pydantic_train.py
+++ b/sub-packages/bionemo-geneformer/tests/bionemo/geneformer/scripts/test_pydantic_train.py
@@ -145,7 +145,7 @@ def test_finetune_cli(tmpdir):
     if result.returncode != 0:
         raise Exception(f"Pretrain recipe failed:\n{cmd_str=}\n{result.stdout=}\n{result.stderr=}")
 
-    cmd_str = f"""bionemo-geneformer-train --conf {config} """.strip()
+    cmd_str = f"bionemo-geneformer-train --conf {config} --model-config-t ExposedFineTuneSeqLenBioBertConfig"
     env = dict(**os.environ)  # a local copy of the environment
     open_port = find_free_network_port()
     env["MASTER_PORT"] = str(open_port)
diff --git a/tach.toml b/tach.toml
index 252ea01e63..b28c38ae7f 100644
--- a/tach.toml
+++ b/tach.toml
@@ -54,7 +54,6 @@ path = "bionemo.geneformer"
 depends_on = [
     { path = "bionemo.core" },
     { path = "bionemo.llm" },
-    { path = "bionemo.testing" },  # needed for the inference script to get the tokenizer reliably.
 ]
 
 [[modules]]