About

I am a pharmacologist turned research software engineer, and I am particularly interested in disentangling causal relationships in molecular biology. I pursue this goal as a part of the lab of Julio Saez-Rodriguez at the Heidelberg University Hospital since 2021, and in affiliation with the Open Targets group at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) since 2024.

Effectively dealing with the avalanche of biomedical measurements of today - without throwing away large parts of the data - requires a smart digital infrastructure. To approach this challenge, I am actively developing a unified framework for biomedical knowledge representation, BioCypher, with the aim of automating harmonisation of biomedical representations for a multitude of research tasks.

Building on this infrastructure, I am developing methods for integrating Large Language Models into the biomedical research workflow, with the aim of increasing accessibility of biomedical knowledge and methods. The BioChatter project is a framework for connecting Large Language Models and auxiliary technologies to the biomedical world. Application examples for the framework’s functionalities can be found at https://chat.biocypher.org and the vignette section of our website.

I have received funding from two EU projects, the Translational Quantitative Systems Toxicology project TransQST and the High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer project DECIDER. In addition, I have been awarded funding from the DFG and Open Targets to develop a new generation of biomedical knowledge mangement systems, starting in 2024.

Affiliations

Heidelberg University, Faculty of Medicine and Heidelberg University Hospital, Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Heidelberg, Germany

Open Targets, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Hinxton, Cambridge, United Kingdom