About me
I am a Principal AI Scientist working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computational biology. My research focuses on building foundation models and AI systems that integrate multimodal biological data—including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, imaging, and scientific literature—to accelerate scientific discovery and therapeutic innovation.
My work spans large language models, generative biology, perturbation modeling, and agentic AI systems capable of reasoning over complex biological processes. I am particularly interested in developing Virtual Cells and biological world models that can simulate cellular behavior, predict responses to genetic and chemical perturbations, and guide experimental design at scale.
Over the past decade, I have led the development of AI-driven solutions across drug discovery, translational research, and biopharmaceutical R&D. My goal is to transform how science is conducted by combining foundation models, autonomous agents, and mechanistic biological knowledge to create intelligent systems that augment scientific decision-making and accelerate the path from data to therapies.
Current Research
- Foundation Models for Biology
- Virtual Cells and Biological World Models
- Agentic AI for Scientific Discovery
- Generative Biology and Sequence Design
- Multimodal Learning and Data Integration
- Single Cell and Spatial Omics
- Causal Inference and Perturbation Modeling
- AI for Drug Discovery and Biopharma R&D
Short Bio
I am currently a principal Artificial Intelligence scientist at J&J working on AI/ML for multimodal data integration (omics, images, text, etc.), generative biology, and perturbational modeling. I received a master’s in Bioinformatics from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Saarland University in Germany. I did my PhD in Computer Science with the International Max Planck Research School for Computer Science at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics. While at Max Planck, I was fortunate to be advised by Prof. Marcel Schulz. I was also a visiting student at Prof. Ernest Fraenkel’s lab. From April 2019 - February 2021, I was a postdoctoral research associate at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) under the supervision of Prof. Manolis Kellis. In my spare time, I play soccer and go hiking. My favorite soccer player is Cristiano Ronaldo.
News
- I will give an invited talk on AI in Biotech: Accelerating Drug Discovery & Development at Future Bioteh Expo in Jun 2026.
- I gave an invited talk on AI’s Impact on the Future of Biotechnology at MIT Department of Engineering in October 2025.
I gave an invited talk at Boston Biotech Summit 2025 on how AI is transforming value creation in biotech ( See blog about my talk).
- I presented our paper on multimodal foundational model for gRNA activity prediction at ICML 2025, Vancouver (fulltext)
- I gave an invited talk at Boston Biotech Summit 2024 on AI applications in biotech and pharmaceutical industry ( Watch my pre-summit interveiw).
Students and Interns
- Ali Khodabandeh – Summer intern from University of Central Florida working on multimodal foundational models for spatial omics and scRNA-seq
- Yuwei Miao – Summer intern from University of Texas working on foundational models for virtual cell
- Junchao Zhu – Summer intern from Vanderbilt University working on multimodal foundation model for spatial omics
- Sophie Guo – Summer intern from MIT, working on generative modeling of perturbational single-cell data
Awards
- INSPIRE Award at J&J: Awarded in recognitation of expecptional leadership and scientific contribution (2023-2025).
- International Max Planck Research School for Computer Science (IMPRS-CS) PhD Fellowship
- DAADA fellowship for doctorial research visit at MIT
- Travel fellowship for German Conference on Bioinformatics 2016
- Travel fellowship for ISMB-SIG 2016