We've done some previous explorations for a model backed by setIn
Originally it started with the synchronized object diff spec. We evenutally implemented a "hidden" version of this that uses a setIn based reducer under the hood:
https://github.com/nteract/nteract/blob/master/packages/core/src/reducers/comms.js#L42-L55
Example notebook: https://github.com/nteract/nteract/blob/master/applications/desktop/example-notebooks/model-debug.ipynb
This repository is going to be an exploration on a python module for binding the comms (two-way) with a python object for these.