Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Biochemist by training, I work at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS gGmbH), a private non-profit research institute in Heidelberg (Germany). My main interests are data management and data integration, as well as data and model standards in the life sciences. In the German National Research Data Infrastructure for Personal Health Data (NFDI4Health), I am involved in a leadership role in the data standardization, data modeling and setup of this long-term national infrastructure and lead its task area "Standards for FAIR Data". In the European project EU-STANDS4PM (European standardization framework for data integration and data-driven in silico models for personalised medicine), I co-lead the work package for data sources and standards for predictions in personalized medicine. At the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) I am chairman (convenor) of the "Data Processing and Integration" working group of the ISO technical committee for biotechnology (ISO/TC 276) and I am member of the national German Standardization Committee for Biotechnology at DIN. In the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS) I chair the project group “FAIR data infrastructures for biomedical informatics” that brings together many life science data management experts in Germany. As part of the board of coordinators, I am involved in the international COMBINE network (Computational Modeling in Biology Network), a grass-roots standardization initiative from the scientific communities in systems and synthetic biology. In the past, I have coordinated the German project "NormSys - Standards for Systems Biology Modeling" and was in a leading role in the European COST action CHARME (Harmonising standardisation strategies to increase efficiency and competitiveness of European life-science research), a network comprising 30 European countries that aims at harmonizing and merging activities of different standardization communities in the life sciences. Furthermore, I am involved in the reaction kinetics database SABIO-RK and in different systems biology research consortia, like the Virtual Liver Network and its successor the Liver Systems Medicine network (LiSyM), as well as in the Infrastructure for Systems Biology Europe (ISBE). My main interest is in how the puzzle of individual scientific results in the field of biomedical research can be structured and assembled by the help of standards to generate knowledge.
- setup and coordination of a national research data infrastructure for public health data in Germany (nfdi4health) - coordination and management of standardization efforts for health data and metadata from epidemiological studies and clinical trials (lead of task area “Standards for FAIR Data”) - ensuring interoperability of health study data - metadata harmonization and mapping to corresponding standards - ensuring data quality and data provenance
• Development of data management concepts for systems biology and systems medicine networks, such as the Virtual Liver Network and the Liver Systems Medicine Network (LiSyM) • User requirements analysis and transfer into data management solutions • Coordination of the development of data management platforms • Data management consultant • Database curation and conceptual design, including data modeling • Biomedical data integration, knowledge representation and data annotation • Development of a concept for the European systems biology infrastructure
Coordinator of the NormSys consortium that aims at promoting and enhancing the formal standardization of community standards in systems biology, especially in the field of modeling
Chair (convenor) of a working group of about 125 members from 23 different countries worldwide at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The working group aims to develop standards for traceable, searchable, and interoperable data together with integrated data processing for biotechnology and the life sciences.
Gene expression profiling and functional analysis of drug regulated genes, including development and production of cDNA microarrays
Experimental lab work (molecular biology and biochemistry)