Welcome to the Pharmaceutical Bioinformatics research group at Uppsala University

Principal Investigator: Ola Spjuth, Professor.

Research focus: Intelligent systems with AI and machine learning in drug discovery and chemical safety

The Pharmaceutical Bioinformatics research group focuses on mathematical and statistical modeling, informatics and quantitative analysis of pharmacological systems. We develop methods, algorithms and software to study and model pharmaceutical interactions, and a key focus in the group is how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning can aid the drug discovery process; e.g. in drug screening and when studying drug toxicity, metabolism and resistance. We combine in silico and in vitro experiments at the cellular level, and have access to a robotized high-content imaging lab connected to a modern IT-infrastructure to manage and analyze large-scale data. We are involved in several national and international consortia and have a tight connection to the pharmaceutical industry, Uppsala University Hospital, and Science for Life Laboratory. See the Projects page for more information on our ongoing research projects.

We are an interdisciplinary team of researchers engaging in data-driven cell biology, aiming to develop autonomous biological laboratories where data drives decisions on what experiments should be done next, and where automation and AI modeling are core methodologies.

Latests Blog Posts

Presenting at ELRIG conference: Advances in Cell-Based Screening in Drug Discovery 2022

12 May, 2022. On 10-12 May Ola, Amelie, Christa, Jonne and Martin from the pharmb.io team visited the ELRIG conference Advances in Cell-Based Screening in Drug Discovery 2022. Ola had an oral presentation on the third day whereas Jonne, Christa and Ameli ...

3 open positions: Biomedical Analyst (BMA), 1st Research Engineer and Researcher for cell profiling applications

20 Dec, 2021. Funded by an infrastructure grant from the Swedish Research Council, our research group at Uppsala University is now establishing a new node as part of the Chemical Biology Consortium Sweden, a national infrastructure for chemical biology. ...

Just published: 'A phenomics approach for antiviral drug discovery' in BMC Biology

3 Jul, 2021. Our latest work “A phenomics approach for antiviral drug discovery” has now been published at BMC Biology! Jonne Rietdijk, Marianna Tampere, Aleksandra Pettke, Polina Georgiev, Maris Lapins, Ulrika Warpman-Berglund, Ola Spjuth, Marjo-Riitt ...

Amelie Wenz joins the research group as new PhD Student

3 Jul, 2021. We welcome Amelie Wenz who recently started as a PhD Student in our group! What is your education, and what have you done earlier in your career? I started my education by studying Biological Science at the University of Konstanz in German ...

Christa Ringers receives mobility grant from Norwegian Research Council to join our team as a PostDoc for a project in functional personalized medicine for colorectal cancer

24 Jun, 2021. We are excited to announce that Christa Ringers has received a prestigious 3-year mobility grant from Norwegian Research Council to join our team at Uppsala University as a PostDoc for 2 years and then continue the project at Norwegian Univ ...

David Holmberg joins the research group as new PhD Student

3 May, 2021. We welcome David Holmberg who recently started as a PhD Student in our group! David will work in the Autonomous Phenomics project. What is your education, and what have you done earlier in your career? Alright, so I am a graduate from Lund ...

Open PhD student position in Applied Mathematics: Autonomous Decision Making in Automated Cell Profiling for Drug Discovery Applications

22 Feb, 2021. There is now an opportunity to apply for a PhD position in Applied Mathematics with a project from our group with the title: “Autonomous Decision Making in Automated Cell Profiling for Drug Discovery Applications”. The PhD stud ...

More blog posts ...

Latest publications

New approach methods to assess developmental and adult neurotoxicity for regulatory use: A PARC Work Package 5 project Tal T, Myhre O, Fritsche E, Rüegg J, Craenen K, Aiello K, Agrillo C, Babin PJ, Escher BI, Dirven H, Hellsten K, Dolva K, Heusinkveld H, Hadzhiev Y, Hurem S, Jagiello K, Judzinska B, Klüver N, Knoll-Gellida A, Kühne BA, Leist M, Lislien M, Lyche JL, Müller F, Neuhaus W, Pallocca G, Seeger B, Scharkin I, Scholz S, Spjuth O, Torres-Ruiz M and Bartmann K.. Frontiers in Toxicology Accepted: (2024)

From Pixels to Phenotypes: Integrating Image-Based Profiling with Cell Health Data Improves Interpretability Seal S, Carreras-Puigvert J, Carpenter AE, Spjuth O, Bender A.. Molecular Biology of the Cell 35:3 (2024)

Insights into Drug Cardiotoxicity from Biological and Chemical Data: The First Public Classifiers for FDA DICTrank Seal S, Spjuth O, Hosseini-Gerami L, Garcia-Ortegon M, Singh S, Bender A, Carpenter AE.. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling 64:4 (2024)

Management of Scientific Datasets in Hierarchical Storage Using Reinforcement Learning Zhang T, Gupta A, Rodríguez MAF, Spjuth O, Hellander A and Toor S.. Expert Systems With Applications 237:121443 (2024)

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Latest presentations

Synergy Conformal Prediction for Regression
10th International Conference on Pattern Recognition Applications and Methods (ICPRAM 2021), . Feb 2021
A Constraint Programming Approach to Microplate Layout Design
The 19th workshop on Constraint Modelling and Reformulation, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Sep 2020
Towards automated phenotypic cell profiling with high-content imaging
Chemical Biology Seminar Series, Stockholm. Feb 2020
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Latest posters

Machine Learning Strategies for Assay Transitions
11th Pharmaceutical Profiling Symposium, Uppsala. Jan 2022
Automating Cell Profiling of Drugs with Cell Painting
10th Pharmaceutical Profiling Symposium, Uppsala. Jan 2020
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