Fabian Theis

Advancing AI for Biology and Medicine | Director of Computational Health at Helmholtz Munich | Professor at TUM | Founder

Greater Munich Metropolitan Area

About

I build bridges between AI, biology & medicine. As Director of the Department of Computational Health at Helmholtz Munich, I lead one of Europe’s largest centers for AI in health, bringing together computational scientists, biologists, and clinicians to understand and predict health and disease across scales. I am also Professor of Mathematical Modelling of Biological Systems at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Associated Faculty at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. My team develops AI tools for single cell genomics, increasingly aiming to build foundational models and digital twins of human cells and ultimately multi-scale biology - what we call the Virtual Human. We’ve created open-source tools such as scanpy, scVelo, CellRank, Squidpy, scGen, CellFlow, MOSCOT, and NicheFormer, and collaborate widely across academia, pharma, and biotech to translate these advances into impact. I’m particularly interested in perturbation modeling, and how AI can reshape discovery and medicine. I post about AI in biomedicine, computational modeling, digital medicine, and the future of data-driven biomedical research. → Follow for updates on our work, new ideas, and opportunities to collaborate.

Experience

  • Co-Founder at RN.AI Therapeutics
    May 2025 - Present · 1 yr 3 mos

    AI-based drug development project

  • Scientific Director of Biomedical AI at Helmholtz Pioneer Campus HPC at Helmholtz Pioneer Campus @ Helmholtz Munich
    Dec 2022 - Present · 3 yrs 8 mos

  • Helmholtz Munich (19 yrs 1 mo)
    • Head of Computational Health Center
      Nov 2021 - Present · 4 yrs 9 mos

      Head of the Helmholtz Munich Computational Health Center

    • Institute Director
      Jun 2013 - Present · 13 yrs 2 mos

      Director, Institute of Computational Biology, Helmholtz Center Munich

    • Junior Group Leader
      Jul 2007 - May 2013 · 5 yrs 11 mos

      Junior group leader ‘Computational Modeling in Biology' (CMB), at Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology

  • Consulting at Immunai
    2021 - Present · 5 yrs 7 mos

  • Chair of AI Council at Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts
    2020 - Present · 6 yrs 7 mos

    Co-chair of the AI council of the Bavarian Ministry for Science and Art