AI Frontiers in Life Sciences: From Models to Meaning
October 2, 2026 @ 08:30 – 16:30 CEST
Image by Andreas Bergfeldt
Date and time: October 2, 2026 at 8.30-16.30 CET
Location: Humanistiska teatern – Uppsala, onsite and livestream via Zoom
The AI Frontiers in Life Sciences: From Models to Meaning symposium will bring together experts in artificial intelligence (AI) and life sciences to explore emerging directions, challenges, and opportunities for AI in life science research.
The symposium will feature presentations, demonstrations, and panel discussions with leading international and Swedish experts. The event is intended for researchers, infrastructure experts, and professionals interested in AI-driven life science research. Discussions will also provide input to the continued development of the SciLifeLab AI Strategy and ongoing and planned activities across SciLifeLab.
Further details, including the full programme, will be announced soon.
Registration:
Registration
Participation is free of charge and places are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Refreshments and lunch will be provided for on-site participants.
In-person places are limited. If in-person registration is full, you are welcome to join the waiting list or register to attend the event via the Zoom livestream.
If you register to join the talks via Zoom, you will receive the livestream link on the day of the event. Please note that the talks will be streamed live only and will not be recorded or made available afterwards.
Waiting List
If we reach full capacity for in-person attendance, a waiting list will be activated. If you join the waiting list, you will automatically receive an email if a place becomes available.
You will need to accept the offer to secure your place. If you decline, the place will be offered to the next person on the waiting list.
Cancellation
To help us minimise empty seats and food waste, please cancel your registration if you are no longer able to attend the event. If a waiting list is active, this will allow us to offer your place to another participant. Timely cancellations also help us avoid unnecessary costs for refreshments and lunch.
If you have questions, please contact datacentre@scilifelab.se
Speakers:
Interim Head of Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit
Anna Kreshuk is a Group Leader and Senior Scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, where she develops computer vision methods for the analysis of microscopy images. She contributes to open-source tools including ilastik and PlantSeg and is an ELLIS Scholar and scientific co-coordinator of the Horizon Europe project AI4Life. She has served as Interim Head of EMBL’s Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit since 2024.
Web: Kreshuk Group
Head of Computational Biology Research Centre – Multimodal AI Across Scales, Computational biology, Research Group Leader,
Dr. Florian Jug holds a PhD in Computational Neuroscience from the Institute of Theoretical Computer Science at ETH Zurich. His research aims at pushing the boundary of what AI and machine learning can do to better analyze and quantify biological data. At HT, Dr. Jug covers the full breadth of bio-image computing, from research on novel methods for computer vision and machine learning, all the way to offering bio-image analysis as a service.
Web: Jug Group
Bioethicist and ELSI Lead
Heidi Howard is a bioethicist and ELSI (Ethical, Legal and Social Issues) Lead at SciLifeLab and the Data-Driven Life Science (DDLS) programme. Her work focuses on the ethical, legal and social implications of data-driven life science and AI, with experience in AI ethics, policy and safety.
Scientific Leader and Associate Principal Scientist, Recursion, a company focused on AI-driven solutions in drug discovery.
Dr. Kadi Liis Saar is the Scientific Leader and Associate Principal Scientist, Computational Biology & Data Science at Recursion, and elected member of Estonian Young Academy of Science. Dr. Saar is an interdisciplinary scientist and inventor with a background in chemical engineering and biotechnology (BA & MEng) and biophysical chemistry (PhD University of Cambridge 2018). Previously at Transition Bio, she was a Junior Research Fellow at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge and a Schmidt Science Fellow working between the Centre for Misfolding Diseases and the Maxwell Centre 2018-2022.
Web: Recursion
Founding Director, ELLIS Institute Finland
Samuel Kaski is the founding director of ELLIS Institute Finland and leads the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI). He is Professor of Machine Learning at Aalto University and Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Manchester. His research focuses on probabilistic machine learning and collaborative AI, with applications in health, medicine and biology.
Web: Kaski Lab
Principal Investigator, Computational Health Center
Sebastian Lobentanzer is a PI at the Computational Health Center at Helmholtz Center Munich since 2025, and in affiliation with the Open Targets group at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) since 2024. Sebastian serves as the head of computational biology at the German Center for Diabetes Research. He is the author of BioCypher – https://biocypher.org/ , BioChatter – https://biochatter.org/ projects.
Web: Lobentanzer Lab
Symposium Programme
Humanistiska teatern
Organisers: SciLifeLab Data Centre datacentre@scilifelab.se
datacentre@scilifelab.se
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