Bioinformatics and AI Seminar

Kris Laukens, who acquired his PhD in 2003, is now a Full Professor in bioinformatics at the University of Antwerp's Adrem Data Lab. His research primarily focuses on developing data science and AI methods to turn biomedical data into actionable insights, supporting a range of (pre-)clinical research projects through innovative data analysis and collaboration with hospitals and research institutes. Laukens founded BIOMINA in 2011, a multidisciplinary hub uniting computational research, life sciences, and clinical expertise, now recognized as a core facility of the University of Antwerp. Additionally, he leads the Tech Transfer consortium "Precision Medicine Technologies" (PreMeT), focusing on converting technology into economic and societal value. In 2022, he received the FWO FNRS AstraZeneca Award for his work on human immune response heterogeneity and he has been acknowledged as a top young innovator in Antwerpen. Further, Laukens has founded two successful spin-off companies. In ImmuneWatch BV, he works on AI technology to make T cell repertoire data actionable in clinical applications.

Yvan Saeys obtained his PhD in computer science from Ghent University. After spending time abroad at the University of the Basque Country (Spain) and the University of Lyon (France) he returned to Belgium and established the Data Mining and Modeling for Biomedicine (DAMBI) group at the VIB Center for Inflammation Research (IRC) in Gent. As of 2015, he is a professor at Ghent University and a principal investigator (group leader) at VIB, where he is heading an interdisciplinary research team of 21 people, consisting of mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers and bioinformaticians. The Saeys lab studies the design and application of novel data mining and machine learning techniques for high-dimensional single-cell omics data, including methods to model cell developmental trajectories and intercellular communication. At the methodological level, the lab studies the robustness and interpretability of machine learning models.

Joost Schymkowitz is een Belgische moleculair bioloog en onderzoeker aan de KU Leuven. Samen met Frederic Rousseau is hij groepsleider bij het VIB Switch Laboratory, KU Leuven.

Frederic obtained his PhD in 2001 from the University of Cambridge (UK) where he worked on mechanisms of protein folding under the mentorship of Laura Itzhaki, in the laboratory of Sir Alan Fersht.

Frederic's postdoctoral work took place at the EMBL in Heidelberg (Germany) in the laboratory of Luis Serrano, where he contributed to the development of several structural modelling tools to predict mutational effect on protein stability. These tools are widely used throughout the biotech and pharmaceutical industry.

Frederic is currently a full professor and one half of a group leader duo running the SWITCH Laboratory at the KU Leuven-VIB Centre for Brain & Disease Research, (Belgium).