Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
in Life Science 2026

Fotis Psomopoulos is a Senior Researcher and the Director of the Bioinformatics Laboratory at the Institute of Applied Biosciences (INAB), at the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH). His research interests lie at the intersection of Bioinformatics and Machine Learning. He is a strong advocate of FAIR and Open Science, in particular as applied in research software and machine learning, leading relevant efforts in Research Infrastructures and Initiatives such as the ELIXIR AI Ecosystem Focus Group and the RDA FAIR for Machine Learning Interest Group, as well as coordinating the EVERSE project on Research Software Excellence.

Hari is a PhD researcher at the VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology (CompOmics group), Ghent, Belgium, where he works on AI-driven approaches to proteomics. His research focuses on agentic AI frameworks for automated metadata extraction from proteomics manuscripts, as well as AI-based de novo signal peptide generation for mRNA vaccine applications. He has a background in applied physics and computational biology, with experience spanning deep learning, NLP, and proteomics bioinformatics.

Iida Hakulinen, M.Sc., is a Data Scientist at CSC- IT Center for Science. She has previously worked with single-cell and spatial transcriptomics data, contributing to the development of Chipster, CSC’s user-friendly analysis platform for next-generation sequencing data. In her current role she provides user support for Python and machine learning in CSC's high-performance computing environments. She also contributes to training activities and projects in the fields of data science, machine learning, and bioinformatics.

Jolan Heyse is a trainer at VIB specializing in AI and data science for life sciences. He holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Ghent University, where he used AI for EEG-based epilepsy diagnosis. Before joining VIB, Jolan worked as a data scientist at AZ Delta, developing AI applications for healthcare. At VIB, he designs and delivers training programs to help scientists with data-driven methods.

Jonathan Frazer is a Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) since 2022. Prior to this, he was a Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School (2018–2022). He has also been a Fellow at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY, 2015–2018) and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of the Basque Country (2013–2015) as well as University College London (2013). Jonathan earned his PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Sussex in 2013. His work focuses on developing machine learning and evolutionary genomics approaches to understand the impact of genetic variation on phenotype and disease.

Mafalda Dias is a Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) since 2022. Before establishing her group in Barcelona, she was a Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School (2018–2022). She previously held a Fellowship at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY, 2015–2018) and worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Sussex (2013–2015). Mafalda obtained her PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Sussex in 2013. Her research combines theoretical and computational approaches to address fundamental questions in genomics and evolutionary biology.

Noelia Ferruz Capapey is a Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona. She completed her degree in Chemistry at the University of Zaragoza, complementing her training with studies in Computational Chemistry at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom). She later obtained a Master’s degree in Bioinformatics and a PhD in Biomedicine from Pompeu Fabra University, before becoming a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Institute of Molecular Biology of Barcelona. She has worked as a project manager at Acellera Labs and as a postdoctoral researcher at Pfizer Inc. (Boston, United States), at the University of Bayreuth (Germany), and at the University of Girona. She currently combines her research with consulting work for various technology companies.

Stella Fragkouli is a Research Associate at the Bioinformatics Laboratory (INAB|CERTH) and a PhD candidate in Bioinformatics at the University of Athens. Her work lies at the intersection of physics, machine learning, bioinformatics and synthetic data, with a particular focus on genomic data analysis and benchmarking methodologies. She actively contributes to European research projects, including SYNTHIA, and community initiatives within ELIXIR, particularly through the AI Focus Group and its Task Force on Generative AI.

Thuong is a Senior Computational Biologist at Vital-IT, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland. His work focuses on bioinformatics, AI, multimodal data integration, and privacy-preserving federated analytics, enabling cross-cohort research without data sharing. He has contributed to international research consortia, with applications ranging from metabolic diseases and host–pathogen interactions to environmental studies, and is involved in training initiatives through ELIXIR.

Wandrille Duchemin is a bioinformatician at the Center for Scientific Computing (sciCORE), University of Basel, Switzerland, and a trainer at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. His current research interests include the relationship between gene and species phylogenies, the analysis of DNA/RNA sequencing data, and the application of machine learning methods to biological data. Duchemin received his Ph.D. degree in evolutionary biology from Lyon University, France.