Kris Laukens

Kris Laukens is professor in biodata mining and bioinformatics at the University of Antwerp. After a master’s degree in Biology (1999) and a PhD (2003) in the area of proteomics and bioinformatics he has worked in several life science labs, was the daily lead of the Intelligent Systems Lab (dept. Mathematics) and visiting postdoc at the University of Southern Denmark.

In 2012 he founded BIOMINA, (biomedical informatics network Antwerpen), an open consortium that brought together computational researchers, life scientists, and clinicians to tackle biomedical data challenges. He now leads a team of 25 people in the Adrem Data Lab (dept. Computer Science), focusing on the development and application of novel bioinformatics, pattern discovery and machine learning algorithms to elucidate the molecular networks that drive living systems. His team also supports a wide range of (pre-)clinical research projects with innovative artificial intelligence based data analysis and interpretation technologies to enable data- driven decision support. He has a long track record of collaborating with life science labs on the analysis and interpretation of small molecule and peptide mass spectrometry, next generation DNA and RNA (including immune repertoire) sequencing, and clinical data. This has led to a portfolio of services that have often evolved in fully funded joint multi-disciplinary research projects, in particular in (but not limited to) the area of immunology and infectious diseases, often in collaboration with AUDACIS (Antwerp Unit for Data Analysis and Computation in Immunology and Sequencing). The team is very active in technology transfer, with Kris leading the IOF consortium “Precision Medicine Technologies (PreMeT). He is co-inventor of three patents on novel biocomputational techniques. He recently founded the new bioinformatics spin-off company ImmuneWatch and is involved in a second new digital health spin-off venture.

Presentation

Artificial Intelligence: engine to make omics clinically actionable?