Computational immunology core
bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, big data
Research aim
We bring together bioinformaticians, biostatisticians and mathematical modelers to develop new methodologies to interpret the complex datasets that are being generated by immunologists, and form a bridge between the wet and dry labs and the clinic.
About us
The field of immunology has experienced a true revolution. Where it once was a largely descriptive field of research, immunologists nowadays generate large, quantitative, and temporal data sets on gene and protein expression, diversity of lymphocyte repertoires, and coevolution of pathogens and the immune system. Immunology has thereby become a lot more quantitative. Such quantitative insights are extremely valuable to understand the complexity of the immune system in health and disease. The interpretation of such data sets requires computational approaches and specific expertise. The Computational immunology core at CTI brings together the required expertise to deal with the challenges imposed by this data revolution in immunology.
We organize bi-weekly computational immunology seminars, informal get-togethers for computational immunologists, and invited lectures for specialists in the field, and have developed the Infection & Immunity Master’s course “Computational Immunology”, exposing students to the use of computational techniques in immunology. We provide training and guidance for PhD students and post-docs in immunology, both for people doing purely computational projects and for those with an experimental or clinical background doing projects with a dry-lab component. With these efforts, we aim to train the next generation of immunologists and be prepared for the future of translational immunology, in which complex datasets will play an ever increasing role.