User meeting for your multi-modal research projects
2026-03-05 09:00 - 10:30 (Europe/Stockholm)
Boost your research — Book a private SciLifeLab planning and feedback session for your multi-modal research projects!

Register here

Once we have received your registration, you will be sent the link to the online meeting.

Date: March 5 9.00 – 10.30 Registration deadline: February 27

Multimodal molecular profiling and novel computational methods are transforming life science research, but also pose new challenges in study design, project resource planning and data management. SciLifeLab is a national resource of unique technologies and expertise available to life scientists, in areas such as biomedicine, ecology and evolution, aiming to bring scientists together across traditional boundaries and foster collaborations with industry, health care, public research organizations and international partners.

The first Thursday of every month at 9.00 (except July and August), SciLifeLab offers an opportunity to jointly meet with representatives across the SciLifeLab service platforms, to get feedback and help to plan, design, and refine new or ongoing multimodal research projects. Your project plans are discussed privately and remain confidential, and information will not be shared outside of the service platforms. Note that for most studies, follow-up meetings will be needed, but our aim for these meetings is to provide an easy-access entry point for an overarching planning of multimodal studies.

For studies focusing on a single technology only, please primarily contact our service platforms directly as described at the SciLifeLab homepage.

To make the best out of the allotted time, we ask you to provide some background information about your project, to help us ensure that the relevant experts are available to discuss your study.

Hands-on Workshop: Developing AI Agents in Life Sciences (Stockholm)
2026-03-05 10:00 - 15:30 | Air&Fire, SciLifeLab Stockholm, Tomtebodavägen 23A, Solna, Sweden
We are delighted to invite you to join our upcoming workshop on “Developing AI Agents in Life Sciences”, organized by SciLifeLab Data Centre. AI agents are emerging as autonomous systems that orchestrate scientific workflows by interacting with digital tools and data sources. These have various implications for life science research. They can, for example, simplify complex analyses by automating data integration, run computational models, and coordinate experimental steps, making research pipelines more efficient and reproducible. In this on-site hands-on workshop held at Air & Fire, SciLifeLab building in Solna, we will introduce and discuss AI Agents in life science, and engage in collaborative practical sessions. Welcome!

Date: 2026-03-05Time: 10.00-15.30 (coffee will be served from 9.30). Fika and lunch provided free of charge. Location: room Air & Fire, SciLifeLab, Tomtebodavägen 23, Solna. No remote participation.

Target audience: Researchers, PhD students, research infrastructure interested in learning more about and trying hands-on exercises with AI Agents. Participants with any university affiliation and industry researchers are welcome. Basic Python programming skills are required; previous experience working with Jupyter notebooks would be helpful. Participants must bring their own laptop.

Speakers and Facilitators: Chris Long Huynh (PhD candidate, Uppsala University), and Mahbub Ul Alam and Johan Alfredéen (Data Engineers (AI) at SciLifeLab Data Centre).

The workshop will feature a series of engaging presentations, interactive discussions, and collaborative sessions focusing on:

Introduction to AI agent technologies

Applications, opportunities and challenges of AI Agents in life science

Hands-on tutorials with reasoning models, LangChain and MCP servers

Discussions on the role of AI agents in shaping the future of life science

Agenda

09:30-10:00 Light breakfast and networking

10.00-10.15 Presentation session 1: Introduction: Exploring how AI agents can transform life sciences. Speaker: Johan Alfredéen.

10.15-10.30 Demonstration Session: AI agents in action. Facilitators: Mahbub Ul Alam.

10:30-12:00 Hands-on Session 1: Developing AI agents with LangChain & ReAct. Session Facilitators: Dinh Long Huynh, Mahbub Ul Alam.

12:00-13:00 Lunch and networking

13:00-13:30 Continuation of Hands-on Session 1: Developing AI agents with LangChain & ReAct.

13:30-15:00 Hands-on Session 2: AI agent collaboration with the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Session Facilitators: Mahbub Ul Alam, Johan Alfredéen, Dinh Long Huynh.

15:00-15:15 Presentation Session 2: Deploying AI Agents: Legal, Technical, and Practical Considerations. Speaker: Johan Alfredéen.

15:15-15:30 Concluding Session: Open Q&A

15:30 Fika and networking

Registration: Please add dietary restrictions to your registration. If you cannot join please cancel your registration. Please register with your SciLifeLab or university email.

Registration

This event is a organised by SciLifeLab Data Centre. For questions please contact serve@scilifelab.se .

Phages: From Basic Discoveries to Clinical Applications
2026-03-09 09:30 - 2026-03-10 12:00 | Atrium KI Campus, Nobels väg 12B, 171 65 Solna
The symposium “Phages: From Basic Discoveries to Clinical Applications” brings together researchers, clinicians and technology developers for two days of focused discussions on how bacteriophages can be advanced as precision antimicrobials. The event aims to bridge traditionally separate communities by (1) engaging clinicians to highlight unmet medical needs and clinical challenges, (2) introducing the SciLifeLab to these problems and (3) showcasing cutting-edge national and international phage research spanning molecular mechanisms, synthetic engineering and therapeutic development.

Date: 9th March 9.30-16 / 10th March 9.30- 12:00

Venue: Atrium, Ground floor in Wargentinhuset, Nobels väg 12B, 171 65 Solna.

Organizer and main contact for questions: Andrea Fossati, DDLS Fellow, KI.

Registration

Register here

Program

phages_2026_v2Download

CSI Seminar - Motivation: Finding it, understanding it, growing it
2026-03-09 14:00 - 14:30 | Gamma 2 Lunchroom, SciLifeLab, Tomtebodavägen 23, Solna, Sweden
Motivation can at first seem like something some people have and others don’t – but is this really true? How can we find motivation within ourselves and gain motivation through others?

We’ll look at how motivation can be influenced by a range of internal and external factors, and discuss practical ways to self-reflect and implement strategies for resilience and persistence. Whether you’re a student, researcher, faculty member, or simply interested in understanding more, you are warmly invited to join this conversation.

We will begin with a ~ 20 min talk, held in Solna and over zoom. Then proceed with a reflection and discussion held on-site. We encourage other sites to form watch parties, by listening in together to the talk and then hold their own discussion afterwards. Hopefully seeding many local chapters of CSI.

To help facilitate discussion and reflection, consider the following starter questions:

Awareness: where do we experience rejection in our lives already?

Analysis: how well do I currently interact with rejection?

Alternative: how could we relate to rejection in academia, for ourselves and others?

Action: how will knowledge of rejection in academia change my decisions going forward?

[The Svedberg seminar] - The evolution of new vertebrate cell types and organs
2026-03-09 15:15 - 16:15 | BMC Room C8:301, Husargatan 3, Uppsala, Sweden
Margarida Cardoso-Moreira

PhD Group Leader of Evolutionary Developmental Biology lab at the Francis Crick Institute, UK

Bio

Margarida Cardoso Moreira leads the Evolutionary Developmental Biology lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London. Her lab focuses on understanding how new cells, tissues, and organs originate using pregnancy as a model. Margarida did her PhD research in Manyuan Long’s group at the University of Chicago. She then took a postdoctoral position in Andrew G. Clark’s group at Cornell University. While at Chicago and Cornell, Margarida investigated the evolution of newly duplicated genes. Margarida then joined the group of Henrik Kaessmann (University of Lausanne and Heidelberg University), where she spearheaded a research program on the evolution of mammalian organs, for which she received the Otto-Schmeil prize from the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2020.

The evolution of new vertebrate cell types and organs

How do new cells, new tissues, and entire new organs arise during evolution? Our lab investigates these questions using an organ that has evolved independently many times and is remarkably diverse: the placenta. The placenta forms through the fusion of embryonic and maternal tissues to enable the transfer of nutrients, waste, and more during gestation. Placentas have evolved more than 100 times independently among vertebrates, including once in mammals. Within a family of small live-bearing fishes known as Poeciliidae, at least nine independent origins of the placenta have occurred. This makes them excellent models for studying how new organs emerge during evolution. We combined whole-genome sequencing, single-cell RNA and ATAC sequencing, and imaging to uncover the molecular, cellular, and developmental basis of five independent origins of a placenta in Poeciliids. We found that the evolution of a novel cell type unique to Poeciliids allowed this family to transition from egg-laying to live-bearing through egg retention. This cell type was subsequently and independently co-opted five times to form the placenta in five species. Across these independently evolved placentas, we observe strong convergence at the molecular level, with specific genes and pathways repeatedly recruited during placental evolution. Together, our findings provide empirical support for a model in which cell-type innovation drives the emergence of new organs and demonstrate that major life history transitions can follow predictable developmental and molecular trajectories.

Host: leif.andersson@imbim.uu.se UU

Artificial intelligence and data-driven approaches for addressing the global challenge of antibiotic resistance
2026-03-11 12:00 - 2026-03-12 13:00 | Norrlands Nation Fest and Conference
Join the Data-driven Epidemiology and Biology of Infection research area (DDLS, Sweden) and the Fleming Initiative (UK) for an inspiring lunch-to-lunch meeting filled with science, networking, and discussions. Primarily for the participants from Sweden and the UK. Others may inquire about availability. Contact information for Saba Parween is found under the headline Registration.

Infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria are increasing, leading to millions of deaths and rising societal costs. Eighty years after Alexander Fleming was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of penicillin, we are still confronted with the urgent challenge of diminishing antibiotic effectiveness. This symposium will explore how artificial intelligence and other data-driven approaches can provide new strategies to combat the growing threat of antibiotic resistance.

The DDLS research area symposia series aims to engage and promote the national scientific community around the DDLS research themes. The symposia bring together researchers, industry, and healthcare to stimulate collaboration and push the frontiers of data-driven life science. The events are open for everyone interested in data-driven research to participate.

This event is jointly organized by the Data-Driven Life Science program (DDLS, Sweden), The Fleming Initiative, a partnership between Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and is hosted by SciLifeLab and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and supported by UK Science and Technology Network.

Read more about the Data-Driven Life Science Program

Read more about the Fleming Initiative.

Date: 11-12 March 2026Time: lunch-to-lunchVenue: Norrlands Nation Fest and Conference, Västra Ågatan 14, 753 09 Uppsala

Conference Dinner at Norrlands Nation after the Poster session.

Registration

Registration has closed! To secure a seat due to a late cancellation, please email events@SciLifeLab.se.

Saba Parween saba.parween@umu.se

Program

Final3_Program_DDLS_EBIDownload

Sessions

Data-Driven Insights into Infection Biology

Applications of Diagnostic and Surveillance Data

Novel Data Approaches for Diagnostics and Patient-Level Care

Research Translation and Implementation of AI in Healthcare

Confirmed Speakers

Laura Carroll, Umeå University, Sweden

David Aanensen, University of Oxford,UK

Carolina Wählby, Uppsala University, Sweden

Daudi Jjingo, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda

Damien Ming, Fleming Initiative, UK

David Lund, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

Suzanne Ruhe-van der Weff, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

Nina Zhu, Imperial College London, UK

Sanjiv Sharma, University of Liverpool, UK

Christian Giske, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

Anna Johnning, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

Nick Moser, Google DeepMind, hosted at Fleming Initiative and Imperial College London, UK

Jesus Rodriguez-Manzano, Imperial College London, UK

David Fange, Uppsala University, Sweden

Johan Bengtsson-Palme, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

Speaker and poster abstracts

Download the speaker and poster abstract book

Organizing Committee

Erik Kristiansson, Chalmers University of Technology/University of GothenburgAlison Holmes, Fleming InitiativeLaura Carroll, Umeå UniversityDamien Ming, Fleming InitiativeJohan Elf, Uppsala UniversityAmish Acharya, Fleming InitiativeUK Science and Technology Network

Questions can be answered by the Organizing Committee or events@scilifelab.se

Manage your registration – Improved event experience: Introducing the Lyyti Event app

This event uses Lyyti for registration. Lyyti has launched the Lyyti Event app, where you can find your Lyyti registration, confirmation, and ticket. You can also edit your information until the registration deadline.

To get started, download “Lyyti Event” and sign up with the same email address you normally use for event registrations. The app only displays events associated with the email address used to create your account.

If you register for events using multiple email addresses, your registrations will be split across separate app accounts. For the best experience, please use one consistent email address for all Lyyti registrations. We hope this new functionality makes it easier for you to manage your participation.

Preventive Medicine via Precision Nutrition
2026-03-12 08:30 - 18:00 | Air&Fire, SciLifeLab Stockholm, Tomtebodavägen 23A, Solna, Sweden
The Preventive Medicine via Precision Nutrition Conference will take place at SciLifeLab in Stockholm on 12th March 2026.

It is widely known that different types of diet shape the composition of the human gut microbiome and that the gut microbiome composition plays a crucial role in several gastrointestinal diseases (i.e. colorectal cancer and inflammatory bowel diseases). The goal of this event aims to bring together experts of complementary fields like food composition, gut microbiome, precision nutrition and precision health to both enhance and create new communication bridges across these disciplines and promote interdisciplinary collaborations to increase the molecular understanding of how food can be leveraged as a precise intervention on individual health. Thus, it will contribute to envisioning a future where food can be employed as preventive medicine by tailoring specific food consumption based on the individual’s gut microbiome composition and molecular needs.Overall, the participants will gain knowledge on the ongoing research to disentangle the complex intersection between food composition, its impact on the gut microbiome composition and precision nutrition.

We look forward to welcoming you in March 2026!

Preliminary Program
Time08:30Coffee and registrationSession 1: Food composition and health effects09:00Event intro09:05Francisco VilaplanaKTH Royal Institute of Technology 09:35Rikard LandbergChalmers University10:05Stefania GiacomelloKTH Royal Institute of Technology & SciLifeLab10:35Coffee break & poster viewingSession 2: Microbiome and disease11:00 Georg ZellerLeiden University11:30 Cecilia WilliamsKTH Royal Institute of Technology12:00 Lunch & poster viewingSession 3: Microbiome and metabolism13:00Fredrik BäckhedGothenburg University & DTU13:30 Yolanda SanzSpanish National Research Council14:00 Robert BrummerÖrebro University14:30 Coffee break & poster viewingSession 4: Preventive Nutrition15:00 Sara Andersson and Grigorios PetrousisKarolinska Hospital15:30 Christopher GardnerStanford University16:00 Round table 16:30-18:00Mingle

Participants
KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Leiden University

Gothenburg University

Stanford University

The Spanish National Research Council

Technical University of Denmark

Chalmers University

Karolinska Hospital

Karolinska Institutet

Örebro University

Confirmed Speakers
Prof. Cecila Williams, KTH

Prof. Fredrik Bäckhed, GU & DTU

Prof. Robert Jan Brummer, ORU

Prof. Rikard Landberg Chalmers

Prof. Yolanda Sanz, CSIC

Prof. Georg Zeller, LUMC

Prof. Christopher Gardner, Stanford

Prof. Francisco Vilaplana KTH

Assoc. Prof. Stefania Giacomello KTH

Dr. Sara Andersson Karolinska Hospital

Dr. Grigorios Petrousis Karolinska Hospital

Organising committee
Stefania Giacomello

Francisco Vilaplana

Emilia Marklund

Isolde Palombo

Registration

For questions, please contact emilia.marklund@scilifelab.se

Swedish Bioinformatics Workshop 2026
2026-03-12 09:30 - 2026-03-13 17:15 | Conference Centre Wallenberg, Medicinaregatan 20A, Gothenburg, 413 90, Sweden
The Swedish Bioinformatics Workshop (SBW) is an annual event organised by different Swedish universities since 2000, and is the largest gathering of bioinformaticians and computational biologists in Sweden. The meeting welcomes participants from all career stages and sectors, with a strong focus on PhD students and postdocs.

The programme will feature keynote presentations, contributed talks, hands-on workshops, and a poster session, with national and international speakers. SBW2026 aligns with the Nordic Computational Biology week.

Programme at a glance

Two full days of talks, six themed sessions, and a dedicated poster session

Four hands-on workshops

Networking opportunities with national and international keynote speakers

Keynote topics

Translational research

Multi-omics

Single-cell technologies

Cancer genomics

Machine learning / AI

Metagenomics

Parallell Workshop Sessions (onsite participation only)

Data Management

Academic Writing

Data Visualization

Bacterial Genomics

Event web page and registration

More information can be found at the event web page.

Event web page

Registration

Registration fees

Participant typeEarly-bird (Dec 1, 2025) RegularStudents* / Postdocs at a Swedish UniversityFreeFreeOther academic participants1,000 SEK2,000 SEKNon-academic participants2,000SEK3,000 SEKOnline** Students / Postdocs at a Swedish UniversityFreeFreeOnline** other participants——-500 SEK

* Students include all PhD students as well as Master’s students in their final thesis year.

** Zoom link will be sent via e-mail.

Important dates

Deadline for abstract submission: December 12, 2025

Deadline for onsite registration: January 12, 2026

Deadline for cancellation: February 23, 2026

Deadline for online registration: February 26, 2026

Understanding the Molecular Mechanism of Progressive Diseases: An Integrative Omics Network Approach
2026-03-20 10:00 - 11:00 | Online event via Zoom
Muhammad Arif

NBIS and SciLifeLab Data Centre arrange an open SciLifeLab AI Seminar Series aimed at knowledge-sharing about Artificial Intelligence and applications in the Life Science community. The seminar series is open to everyone. The seminar is run over Zoom on the third Friday of the month during academic terms, typically between 10 and 11 am, with approx. 45 min presentation and 15 min discussion.

When: March 20, 10:00-11:00

Where: Zoom http://meet.nbis.se/ainw

Speaker: Muhammad ArifDDLS fellow Precision Medicine and Diagnostics, University of GothenburgAbstract

Many common diseases, including cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, develop gradually through complex biological changes long before symptoms appear. This work presents a data-driven, systems-level approach that integrates large-scale omics data with network analysis to uncover how these diseases progress. By examining interactions across thousands of genes and pathways simultaneously, the framework identifies key molecular drivers of aging and peripheral artery disease, reveals early warning signals, and highlights potential therapeutic targets. This integrative strategy illustrates how combining biology with computational approaches can accelerate discovery and advance earlier, more personalized medical care.

To stay updated, you can join our email list by contacting ai-network@scilifelab.se

Join Webinar

Cancer Core Europe’s 10th Annual meeting 2026 & Karolinska CCC days 2026
2026-03-23 08:00 - 2026-03-24 17:00 | Aula Medica, Nobels väg 6, Solna
Welcome to Cancer Core Europe’s 10th Annual meeting 2026 & Karolinska CCC days 2026 – a joint event to maximize oncology collaborations, March 23-24, 2026, Stockholm

On 23–24 March, Cancer Research KI and Karolinska CCC will host the Cancer Core Europe Annual Meeting and the Karolinska CCC Days 2026 in Stockholm. We look forward to two inspiring days filled with scientific discussions, networking, and valuable knowledge exchange.

Read more

The program is designed for all researchers and clinical staff interested in cutting‑edge cancer prevention, research, care and education. This year’s meeting features an engaging agenda, including scientific presentations, a poster session, Cancer Core Europe updates, and several distinguished keynote speakers: Irene Braña, (Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology), Eric Fey, (University of Helsinki), Elisabete Wiederpass, (International Agency for Research on Cancer), Michael Baumann (German Cancer Research Center).

We are also pleased to present a highly engaging panel discussion with representatives from six major European cancer initiatives, exploring how we can strengthen collaboration and work more effectively together across Europe.

The event offers a unique opportunity to connect with researchers from Karolinska CCC as well as scientists from the seven renowned Cancer Core Europe Institutes, while gaining insights into the latest breakthroughs and developments in cancer research.

Don’t miss our inspiring poster session, showcasing a wide range of work, from pioneering basic science to clinical studies and innovative projects shaping the future of cancer care. A prize will be awarded for the best poster. Submit your abstract for a poster here.

The event will be held in English, is open to all, and free of charge.

A warm welcome

on behalf of CRKI and Karolinska CCC,

Elias Arnér and Patrik Rossi

Organizers:

Cancer Research KI (CRKI) is an umbrella organization for all cancer research at Karolinska Institutet that has been working to support cancer research through various activities aimed at cancer researchers, including several research grants and scientific meetings and other networking opportunities. CRKI is also part of Karolinska CCC.

Karolinska Comprehensive Cancer Center (Karolinska CCC) is a center for cancer care and research at the hospital and institute under one roof. Karolinska CCC brings together cutting-edge expertise in highly specialized cancer care and basic, translational and clinical cancer research. The center is a joint initiative between Karolinska University Hospital and Karolinska Institutet – and the first accredited Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC) in Sweden.

Cancer Core Europe (CCE) is a collaborative and forward-thinking consortium consisting of seven leading cancer centers and research institutions. Cancer Research UK Cambridge Center (Cambridge, UK), German Cancer Research Center with National Center for Tumor Diseases (Heidelberg, Germany), Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus Grand Paris (Villejuif, France), Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori (Milan, Italy), Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden), Netherlands Cancer Institute (Amsterdam, Netherlands) and Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (Barcelona, Spain). Together they work to advance cancer research and translate scientific breakthroughs into clinical practice across Europe.

Decoding Enhancer-Mediated Gene Regulation with CAGE-seq and Deep Learning
2026-03-23 14:00 - 15:00 | Air&Fire, SciLifeLab Stockholm, Tomtebodavägen 23A, Solna, Sweden
Michiel de Hoon, RIKEN center, Japan

Abstract

Precise regulation of gene expression is fundamental to cellular identity and behavior, and gene dysregulation is a common feature across a wide variety of diseases. At the molecular level, this regulation is orchestrated by transcription factors acting on non-coding regulatory elements at promoters and distal enhancers. Genome-wide association studies have shown that disease-associated variants are enriched in enhancer elements, and somatic mutations in these regulatory regions can contribute to diseases such as cancer. As it is often unclear how such variants influence gene expression, connecting enhancers to their target promoters is a key step toward understanding the regulatory basis of pathogenic gene expression.Cap Analysis Gene Expression (CAGE-seq), originally developed at RIKEN, provides an unbiased and quantitative genome-wide view of transcription initiation at single-nucleotide resolution. Beyond quantitating mRNAs and long non-coding RNAs, CAGE-seq revealed widespread transcription at enhancers, enabling their systematic identification and quantitative characterization. While traditional bioinformatics approaches have focused on genome annotation and expression analysis, emerging neural network frameworks now enable inference of enhancer–promoter interactions directly from sequencing data.

In this presentation, I will highlight the use of AI-based sequence-to-function frameworks that can predict transcriptional activity directly from genomic sequence. When combined with CAGE-seq, these approaches enable the construction of context-specific regulatory maps linking enhancer activity to gene expression. Using examples from leukemia, I will illustrate how CAGE-seq data, analyzed using deep learning, support a systematic interpretation of inter-patient heterogeneity in gene regulation.

Biography

I entered computational biology during my Ph.D. in Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. After postdoctoral training in bioinformatics at the University of Tokyo and Columbia University, I joined RIKEN in Yokohama, where I became a core contributor to the FANTOM consortium, an international effort to functionally annotate the mammalian genome.

Between 2014 and 2021, I led the computational biology program of FANTOM6, coordinating my research group and consortium-wide efforts to functionally annotate non-coding RNA. I am currently a tenured Senior Research Scientist at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, investigating gene regulatory mechanisms in disease, particularly cancer.

More recently, my research has focused on developing and applying AI-based sequence-to-function models to infer long-range gene regulatory interactions from genome and transcriptome data, with the aim of understanding the regulatory basis of inter-patient heterogeneity in disease.

Host: Pelin Sahlen pelin.akan@scilifelab.se

[The Svedberg seminar] - Defining Zika virus disease in maternal-fetal infection
2026-03-23 15:15 - 16:15 | BMC Room C8:301, Husargatan 3, Uppsala, Sweden
Jenny Go

Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Minnesota, USA

Bio

Dr. Go is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Minnesota where her research program is focused on understanding innate immune and inflammatory responses in the control of viral infection. She was awarded a PhD from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she studied enveloped viral glycoproteins of SARS-CoV and avian H5N1 influenza virus. She completed postdoctoral training at the University of Washington in the Microbiology Department pursuing a systems biology approach to study virus-host interactions and the application of omics technologies toward infectious disease research.

Defining Zika virus disease in maternal-fetal infection

Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne neuroinvasive virus that was responsible for the 2015-2016 large-scale epidemic impacting over 80 countries globally. It remains a significant public health threat due to its capacity to trigger widespread, multifactorial outbreaks and severe fetal health outcomes, including neurologic malformations at birth. We have used a macaque model of maternal-fetal ZIKV transmission to study virus-host interactions that underlie fetal disease and found that prenatal ZIKV exposure led to disruption of fetal myelin, with extensive downregulation in gene expression for key components of oligodendrocyte maturation and myelin production. The molecular features of ZIKV-induced brain injury were evaluated in mixed neural cultures at single-cell resolution and we identified astrocytes as important innate immune cells, while neural stem cells supported high levels of viral replication. Our findings reinforce the serious nature of ZIKV infection during pregnancy and the need for effective drugs or vaccines to prevent ZIKV congenital infection.

Host: Jan Komorowski jan.komorowski@icm.uu.seUU

Data Driven Systems Biology: Harnessing Big Data and Systems Approaches to Decode Complex Biology
2026-03-24 09:00 - 2026-03-25 17:00 | Life City, Solnavägen 3H, Stockholm, 113 64
In the era of high-throughput technologies and rapidly expanding biomedical datasets, the field of systems biology is undergoing a transformative shift. The Data-Driven Systems Biology conference brings together leading researchers who are leveraging computational, statistical, and systems-level approaches to integrate and interpret complex biological data. This conference will explore how multi-omics, single-cell technologies, and spatial profiling, combined with advanced computational modeling and machine learning, are reshaping our understanding of dynamic biological systems.

The DDLS research area symposia series aims to engage and build a strong national scientific community around the DDLS research themes. Each of the four areas arranges two symposia per year. Everyone interested in data-driven research is welcome to take part. We aim to unite researchers, industry, and healthcare to foster collaboration and advance the frontiers of data-driven life science.

Target Group: The DDLS research area Expert Group in Cell and Molecular Biology invites all interested in Data-driven life science to meet, present, interact, and discuss Imaging in Cell and Molecular Biology.

The event will take place at Life City, Solna, Stockholm, and will include presentations from international and national invited speakers and selected abstracts. The event is free of charge.

Date: March 24-25, 2026

Start on March 24: 11:00 – 12:30 Registration open. 11:30-12:30 Network lunch. The conference starts in the Lecture hall at 12:30.

End: March 25 with a Network lunch from 12:30 to 13:30.

Venue: Life City, Solnavägen 3H i Solna.

Organized by: Arne Elofsson and Eduardo Villablanca, DDLS Expert Group in Cell and Molecular Biology.

Contact: events@SciLifeLab.se

Program

Agenda_DDLS_CMB_March2026_v7Download

Poster session

The poster session will take place at 17:30 in Delta, Campus Solna. Light food and drinks will be served. Please hang your poster on any empty poster board as soon as you arrive to Campus Solna after the Conference’s first day. Pins will be available.

Abstract book

Registration

The registration deadline is March 10. We cannot accept any posters after deadline. To avoid empty seats, registration will remain open with a que-list until the event begins. However, registering after March 10 requires you to write your name on a name tag at on-site registration. Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate allergies or dietary preferences for those who register after March 10.

Register here

Cancellation

Please! To minimize empty seats and food waste, cancel your registration if you are unable to attend, or update your lunch selection if your attendance changes. Cancel/update via the Confirmation email or email events@scilifelab.se.

Confirmed speakers

Alfonso Valencia, ICREA Professor, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain
Title: Data, Digital Twins and AI

Bio: Prof. Alfonso Valencia is ICREA research Professor, Director of the Life Sciences Department of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Director of the Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute INB/ELIXIR-ES and coordinator of the data pillar of the Spanish Personalised Medicine intiative, IMPaCT. His research interest is the development of Computational Biology methods and their application to biomedical problems. Some of the computational methods he developed are considered pioneering work in areas such as biological text mining, protein coevolution, disease networks and more recently modelling cellular systems (digital twins). He participates in some of the key cancer related international consortia. In terms of community services, he is one of the initial promoters of the ELIXIR infrastructure, founder of the Spanish and International Bioinformatics networks and former president of ISCB, the international professional association of Bioinformaticians. He is Executive Editor of the main journal in the field (Bioinformatics OUP).

Abstract: In this talk I will treat in some order these three topics: Data, human Ditigal Twins and the impact of AI in biomedicine.

I will address the persistent bottleneck of data access in biomedical research, where the combination of legal and technical hurdles span the entire data lifecycle, from discovery and access to integrated analysis. I will mention the current developments to overcome these limitations by implementing federated discovery and analysis systems designed to work across borders and heterogeneous resources.

Regarding Digital Twins, I will discuss the importance of those developments in the transition from statistical correlations, which are standard in genomics analysis, to mechanistic interpretations that will better align with the core objectives of molecular biology. We are approaching this underdeveloped area with the construction of mechanistic models of cellular systems, that are already showing promising results in critical biological systems.

Finally, I will discuss how the rapid advances of AI is influencing the work in different areas of biomedicine – including specific examples of how we combine Digital Twins and AI methods- as well as what I see as promises and limitations in this area.

Avlant Nilsson, KI
Title: From Omics to Mechanisms: Deep Learning Models of Molecular Networks for Precision Cancer Medicine

Bio: Avlant Nilsson is an Assistant Professor in Precision Medicine at the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Karolinska Institutet, and a group leader at SciLifeLab through the DDLS program. He holds an MSc (2014) and a PhD (2019) in Biological Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology, where his thesis focused on the metabolism of proliferating cells, including liver cancer. He then pursued postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2019–2023), developing neural network models of signal transduction in immune cells. His research group, currently comprising of two PhD students and two postdoctoral researchers, develops data-driven models of molecular networks to understand how genetic alterations, cell type of origin, and cell–cell interactions shape cancer biology. The long-term goal of the lab is to advance computer-aided design of cancer medicine by predicting drug responses, resistance mechanisms, and microenvironmental interactions.

Abstract: Cancer is highly heterogeneous, spanning a multitude of genetic alterations, cell types, and microenvironmental contexts, making it difficult to identify effective treatments for individual patients. Deep learning models are powerful predictive tools that could be applied to large-scale molecular data, but their black-box nature limits their ability to generate mechanistic insight to guide therapeutic intervention.

To overcome this, we develop biologically informed neural network models that embed known molecular interaction networks directly into the deep learning architecture. Specifically, we construct recurrent neural network models of cells in which biomolecules are represented as nodes with connections defined by their physical interactions. These models take data with molecular causes as input (such as mutations and copy number variations) and are trained to predict omics readouts, including gene expression, protein phosphorylation states, and metabolite levels.

By training models on high-throughput datasets spanning different cell types, perturbations, and conditions, we can predict molecular responses in conditions that are withheld during training. We also use these models to expose non-canonical signaling events that would be difficult to identify directly from the data using standard analysis approaches. With this, our framework offers the potential to identify novel drug targets, biomarkers, and to predict resistance mechanisms.

Camilla Engblom, KI
Title: Spatially resolving B cell clonal dynamics in cancer and beyond

Bio: Dr. Camilla Engblom is a SciLifeLab Fellow and an Assistant Professor in the Division of Immunology and Respiratory Medicine and the Department of Medicine, Solna at the Karolinska Institutet (KI). Dr. Engblom received her PhD in Immunology from Harvard University in 2017 focusing on long-range cancer-host interactions involving myeloid cells (Dr. Mikael Pittet’s lab at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School). As a MSCA postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Jonas Frisén’s lab (KI), Dr. Engblom developed a spatial transcriptomics-based tool (Spatial VDJ) to map B cell and T cell receptors within human tissues. Located at SciLifeLab and the Center for Molecular Medicine (KI), the Engblom lab’s main research focus is to spatially and functionally resolve B cell clonal dynamics in cancer tissues and beyond.

Abstract: B cells perform functions critical to human health, including antibody production and antigen presentation. B cells develop, differentiate, and expand in spatially distinct sites across the body. B cells express clonal heritable B cell receptors (BCR) that confer exquisite molecular (i.e., antigen) specificity. B cell receptors can be defined by sequencing. Linking specific BCR sequences to their molecular and cellular surroundings, i.e., ‘clonal niche’, could help us understand and harness B cell activity. A technological bottleneck has been to capture the location of BCR sequences, and by extension B cell clonal responses, directly within tissues. We recently developed a spatial transcriptomics-based approach (Spatial VDJ) and associated computational pipelines to reconstruct B cell clonality in human tissues. Here, we present adaptation of Spatial VDJ to murine tissue to enable preclinical studies and B cell receptor dynamics under inflammatory conditions, including cancer.

Carsten Hopf, CeMOS Center for Mass Spectrometry and Optical Spectroscopy, TH Mannheim, Germany
Title: Enabling technologies for spatial metabolomics: Moving from single cells to 3D-space exploration in mixed reality

Bio: Carsten Hopf obtained his PhD in biochemistry from Tübingen University/Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology. As an EMBO fellow in neuroscience, he then worked at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for three years, before joining Cellzome AG, a proteomics-focused drug discovery platform company in Heidelberg in 2001. There, for 13 years, he served in multiple roles in platform technology, assay development, drug discovery and business development, and eventually as part of Cellzome’s leadership team until the end of 2014.

Since 2005, Carsten Hopf is a professor of bioanalytics, proteomics and drug discovery at TH Mannheim. He currently heads TH.M’s CeMOS Research and Transfer Center that was recently selected as mass spectrometry imaging partner site of the EU-OPENSCREEN research infrastructure that SciLifeLab and KI are also parts of. Carsten is the Speaker of the M2Aind partnership for innovation in health industry in Mannheim, and he serves on various science and innovation cluster boards. He is also an associated professor in the Medical and Biosciences Faculties of Heidelberg University and co-chair for “imaging” of the German Society for mass spectrometry (DGMS). Carsten’s research focuses on Mass Spectrometry and Optical Spectroscopy enabling technologies for health and life science, especially spatial systems biomedicine.

Abstract: MALDI-Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI), also referred to as spatial metabolomics, has emerged as a powerful technology for spatially resolved analysis and visualization of lipids and metabolites in systems biology and clinical research. Advancement of MSI requires rapid progress in multiple areas such as instrumentation, experimental workflows and computational strategies to harness big data. The talk will therefore initially review a “classic” technology show case using tissue slices: Spatial metabolomics revealed that Tet3 knockout enterocytes exhibit an unphysiological metabolic profile when compared with their wild-type counterparts suggesting that terminal cell differentiation is regulated by TET3 at the metabolic level. MSI technology has recently moved into two new directions: Single-cell metabolomics and 3D-reconstructed metabolomics.

To study proinflammatory activation of iPSC-derived microglia by bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS), we developed the PRISM-MS (PRescan Imaging for Small Molecule – Mass Spectrometry) platform for analysis and on-cell MS2 identification of low mass metabolites (<200 Da) in large cell populations. Itaconate and taurine were identified as markers for “activated” versus “resting” microglia, respectively. Translation of single cell results to endogenous microglia in organotypic rat hippocampal slice cultures indicated that LPS-activation involves changes of the itaconate-to-taurine ratio and alterations in neuron-to-glia glutamine-glutamate shuttling.

To investigate fibroblast-colon cancer cell interactions in a simple 3D-culture model and in patient-derived organoids (PDOs), we built a translational 3D MSI platform as an end-to-end solution for 3D-enabling sample preparation, 3D-reconstruction and data processing, 3D-rendering, and immersive user interaction with organoid big data in a mixed reality. When applied to colon cancer PDOs, the methodology revealed that fluid-filled cysts characteristic of these PDOs were rich in purine nucleotides.

Erik Sonnhammer, Stockholm University
Title: Harnessing Big Data for Network Biology with FunCoup 6

Bio: Erik Sonnhammer is Professor of Bioinformatics at Stockholm University, and previously had the same position at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. He did a Ph.D. in bioinformatics at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge, England. His research interests are in network and systems biology to understand gene and protein function on a large scale. The group has made many contributions to Gene Regulatory Network analysis, including inference, benchmarking, and simulation.

Abstract: FunCoup 6 is a major update to the FunCoup network database, providing researchers with a significantly improved and redesigned platform for exploring the functional coupling interactome. The FunCoup network database (https://FunCoup.org) contains some of the most comprehensive functional association networks of genes/proteins available. Functional associations are inferred by integrating different types of evidence combined with orthology transfer. FunCoup’s high coverage comes from using ten different types of evidence, and extensive transfer of information between species.

Key innovations in release 6:– Enhanced regulatory link coverage: FunCoup 6 now includes over half a million directed gene regulatory links in the human network alone. 13 species in FunCoup now contain regulatory links..– The website is completely redesigned, with updated API functionalities, ​enhancing user accessibility and experience.– Integrated advanced online tools for network analysis: The integration of TOPAS for disease and drug target module identification, along with network-based pathway enrichment analysis using ANUBIX, expand the utility of FunCoup 6 for biomedical research.– New training framework: applied to produce comprehensive networks for 23 primary species and 618 additional orthology-transferred species.– FunCoup 6 is also available as a Cytoscape app.

A unique feature of both the FunCoup website and the Cytoscape app is the possibility to perform ‘comparative interactomics’ such that subnetworks of different species are aligned using orthologs. FunCoup further demonstrates superior performance compared to other functional association networks, offering researchers enhanced capabilities for studying gene regulation, protein interactions, and disease-related pathways.

Jean Hausser, KI
Title: Learning cellular dynamics of tissues from single-cell and spatial omics

Bio: Jean researches mathematical rules in the molecular tricks that cancer cells use to escape destruction by immune cells. We seek to articulate the molecular chat between immune and cancer cells into equations, to serve as the foundation to engineer personalized cancer immunotherapy. We combine single-cell and spatial tumor profiling experiments, machine-learning & data science, and physics-style mathematical modeling.

Abstract: Cell proliferation and death rates are central to tissue biology but measuring them in vivo remains a persistent challenge. Here we present tissue dynamics inference (TIDYI), which quantifies absolute cell proliferation and death rates from non-longitudinal single-cell RNAseq snapshots. TIDYI expands the capability of single-cell RNAseq to extracting the cell dynamics of healthy and pathological tissues in vivo.

Katerina Despoina Nastou, Statens Serum Institut, Denmark
Title: Extracting protein-protein interactions from the literature with deep learning-based text mining

Bio: Katerina Nastou holds a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and is a researcher at Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, specializing in multi-omics data analysis, biomedical text mining, and systems biology. Her work focuses on applying deep learning to extract and model molecular relationships from large-scale biological data and the scientific literature. She has contributed to the STRING database, a leading resource on protein networks, by upgrading its text-mining channel with advanced deep learning-based language models. She also currently collaborates internationally on projects such as AIM-HEART and EPOCH.

Abstract: Biomedical knowledge about molecular mechanisms is still mostly buried in the vastness of the biomedical literature. In this talk, I will introduce a deep learning-based text-mining pipeline that reads the biomedical literature to extract protein-protein interactions and typed regulatory relations, then plugs them into the STRING database. Powered by transformer-based language models, the approach goes beyond simple co-occurrence to recover interactions that are mechanistically specific and often missed. I will highlight why high-quality labelled data are the real bottleneck, how we tackle it with human-in-the-loop annotation, and what we learned from models trained on the ComplexTome and RegulaTome corpora. Finally, we will explore the possibilities unlocked by scaling up evidence-linked relation extraction.

Lucy Colwell, University of Cambridge, UK
Title: Data driven models that predict protein function from sequence

Bio: Lucy Colwell is a researcher on the Science team at Google DeepMind and a faculty member in chemistry at the University of Cambridge. Her primary interests are in the application of machine learning approaches to better understand the relationship between the sequence and function of proteins. Before moving to Cambridge Lucy received her PhD from Harvard University and held an EPSRC fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ and the MRC-LMB in Cambridge. In 2018 Lucy was appointed a Simons Investigator in the Mathematical Modeling of Living Systems. Over the last few years Lucy’s team has worked closely with experts at EMBL-EBI to add millions of AI-generated protein function annotations to public databases.

Abstract: Predicting protein function from amino acid sequence remains a fundamental challenge, essential for discovering novel biological mechanisms and interpreting the functional effects of genomic mutations. By training on large curated sequence repositories, we have developed machine learning models that map raw sequences directly to functional annotations. To provide a full-spectrum portrait of protein function, our specialized large language models are trained to predict a suite of global functional fields (such as protein names, GO terms, and functional descriptions) directly from sequence.Moreover, we present a novel approach that adapts Vision Transformer (ViT) architectures to the task of sequence segmentation, enabling the end-to-end prediction of discrete functional domains—allowing a single model to make predictions across complex, nested, or discontinuous architectures. Crucially, these systems successfully bridge large homology gaps; their predictions have been prospectively and independently experimentally validated, demonstrating high levels of accuracy even for novel sequences that are highly distant from the training set. Finally, we worked closely with collaborators at EMBL-EBI and across InterPro member databases, collectively adding millions of predicted annotations to public databases and significantly expanding our functional map of the dark proteome.

Marcel Tarbier, Uppsala University
Title: That’s Gonna Leave a Mark: Computational inference of complex cell features

Bio: Marcel studied Biology and Bioinformatics in Germany before starting his PhD in Computational Biology at Stockholm University. In the lab of Marc Friedländer he characterized subtle gene expression variations in virtually identical cells – linking them to regulatory layers and showing their predictive potential. He moved to the lab of Vicent Pelechano at Karolinska Institute for his postdoc to investigate single-cell RNA degradation dynamics and cell lineage relationships – resulting in pioneering work which showed that cellular ancestries can be predicted using only gene expression. In 2025, he started his lab as a DDLS fellow in precision medicine and diagnostics at Uppsala University and SciLifeLab, focusing on computational approaches to infer complex cell features, such as lineage and micro-environment, to characterize cancer heterogeneity and phenotype switches.

Abstract: In molecular biology and medicine the molecular composition of samples is the most utilized readout, and transcriptomic measurements are at the heart of a myriad of break-throughs from developmental biology to pathophysiology. In complex systems, single-cell readouts have revolutionized our understanding of molecular mechanisms. But single-cell gene expression measurements are “confounded” by complex cell features such as cell lineage relationship, cellular micro-environment and cell cycle phase. None of these features can easily be measured alongside comprehensive single-cell readouts, greatly limiting our ability to draw conclusions from single cell data and to put them into biological context.

We therefore develop computational tools to infer ancestry, environment and cell cycle phase from gene expression data. These tools compute approximations of these features based on the marks they leave on the gene expression profiles. Here we present our latest advances in inferring cell lineage relationships in in situ sequencing data, as well as the cellular microenvironment and cell-cycle phases in single-cell RNA-sequencing data using neural networks.

Mika Gustafsson, Linköping University
Title: “Integrating protein interaction maps and omics for explainable health indicators”

Bio: Mika Gustafsson is a Professor in Translational Bioinformatics (PhD in Theoretical Physics, 2010) at the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Technical Faculty, Linköping University. Over the past ten years, he has led a research group of five to seven members. His core expertise lies in creating and integrating network analyses with omics and has been developing machine learning methods for precision medicine. In many projects, he has led medical doctors and molecular biologists in testing and validating omics-based findings, working primarily on complex diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

Abstract: High-dimensional omics data such as genome-wide DNA methylation capture cumulative effects of development, environment, lifestyle, and disease. Yet, most predictive models trained on these data remain difficult to interpret biologically, limiting their utility for systems-level reasoning and clinical decision support. In this work, we present a unifying framework that integrates protein–protein interaction (PPI) networks into deep representation learning, yielding biologically structured, explainable embeddings that support both multi-omic modeling and systems level health assessment.

We first show that deep autoencoders trained on large DNA methylation and transcriptomic compendia naturally organize their latent spaces into functionally coherent modules. By introducing a soft PPI prior during training, we encourage each latent unit to correspond to localized regions of the human interactome, without hard-wiring biological constraints. This network-guided learning produces compact, non-redundant latent representations aligned with core biological processes such as immune signaling, metabolism, cell-cycle control, and mitochondrial function. Importantly, these structured embeddings transfer their mechanistic organization to downstream tasks: in cancer cohorts, cross-omic translation models built on PPI-guided embeddings outperform accuracy-matched baselines while preferentially recovering known driver genes and hallmark pathways. As an intermediate example linking molecular representation to organismal phenotype, we apply the same network-coherent embeddings to epigenetic aging. Using whole-blood DNA methylation across the human lifespan (n ≈ 18,000), we develop highly accurate and interpretable neural-network age clocks that integrate data-driven embeddings with established CpG markers. These models not only achieve state-of-the-art precision but also recover age-specific epigenetic signatures enriched for example by developmental processes. Finally, we use these representations for systems level health modeling. By defining bounded respiratory, cardiovascular, and metabolic health scores from clinical reference ranges and disease penalties, and predicting them from blood methylation embeddings, we obtain accurate and transparent health indicators that reflect both population structure and multi-system coupling. Feature attribution reveals biologically meaningful processes underlying each system, such as airway repair and hypoxia responses for respiratory health, endothelial remodeling for cardiovascular status, and glucose–lipid metabolism for metabolic function.

Together, this work demonstrates that embedding functional network knowledge directly into representation learning provides a scalable route from omics data to explainable, system-aware health indicators. By keeping biology in the loss, the approach remains flexible, extensible, and suitable for large cohorts and thereby advancing explainable AI for systems biology, aging research, and clinical decision support.

Simon Koplev, KTH
Title: Dynamics of immunological tissue architecture linking inflammation with colorectal cancer

Bio: Simon Koplev is a SciLifeLab Fellow and newly appointed group leader in computational biology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Gene Technology. He leads a computational biology research group investigating the fundamental principles and architecture of human tissues across organs in healthy steady-state and disease perturbations. The group is engaged with collaborative large-scale and open science efforts such as the Human Cell Atlas, developing the next generation of reference datasets and computational methods. Simon holds a PhD in Medical Science from the University of Cambridge at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute supervised by John Marioni and Martin Miller. He did his postdoc with Sarah Teichmann at the Sanger Institute and Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, working on human single-cell and spatial studies of intestinal fibroblasts. Simon has 12 years of experience in bioinformatics research having published with more than 500 co-authors 35 peer-reviewed papers, spanning research on cancer, cardiovascular diseases, fibroblasts, gene regulatory networks, and computational methods development using machine learning. He holds a MScEng in Systems Biology from the Technical University of Denmark, supervised by Søren Brunak, including 2 semesters as a Research Scholar at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School. Simon began his scientific career with a BS in Biochemistry from the University of Copenhagen.

Abstract: TBA

Manage your registration

Improved event experience: Introducing the Lyyti Event app

This event uses Lyyti for registration. Lyyti has launched the Lyyti Event app, where you can find your Lyyti registration, confirmation, and ticket. You can also edit your information until the registration deadline.

To get started, download “Lyyti Event” and sign up with the same email address you normally use for event registrations. The app only displays events associated with the email address used to create your account.

If you register for events using multiple email addresses, your registrations will be split across separate app accounts. For the best experience, please use one consistent email address for all Lyyti registrations. We hope this new functionality makes it easier for you to manage your participation.

The MaLDReTH map of tools used in the research lifecycle: A reference for building interoperability into research infrastructures
2026-03-24 11:00 - 12:00 | Online event via Zoom
MaLDReTH is a community initiative coordinated by an RDA working group. MaLDReTH maps categories of tools commonly used in each phase of the research lifecycle, and includes examples of each tool category. The talk will explain how PRISM, an interactive tool, is being developed to catalogue interoperability between the tools included in MaLDReTH. It will then describe how universities and national infrastructure projects in Europe and elsewhere are referencing MaLDReTH and PRISM to design integrated research infrastructures whose components (tools) are interoperable, enabling streamlined passage of data and metadata through the research lifecycle.

During this online webinar Rory MacNeil will guide us through the world of MaLDReTH.

Presenter: Rory Macneil, CEO, Research Space

This event is part of the SciLifeLab Open Science seminar series, an event series by the SciLifeLab Data Centre and NBIS joint Data Management team. The goal of the events in this seminar series is to provide interesting interactive seminars around topics related to Research Data Management and Open Science in general, and to foster discussions around best practices. More information about SciLifeLab Data Centre and NBIS joint Open Science seminar series: https://www.scilifelab.se/data/scilifelab-data-management-seminar-series/

If you have suggestions for topics or presentations, please contact us at data-management@scilifelab.se For more information or inquiries, please contact us at data-management@scilifelab.se

More information

This event is part of the SciLifeLab Open Science seminar series, an event series by the SciLifeLab Data Centre and NBIS joint Data Management team.The goal of the events in this seminar series is to provide interesting interactive seminars around topics related to Research Data Management and Open Science in general, and to foster discussions around best practices.

Research Data Management (RDM) concerns the organization, storage, preservation, and sharing of data that is collected and analyzed during a research project. Proper planning and management of research data will make project management easier and more efficient while projects are being performed. It also facilitates sharing and allows others to validate as well as reuse the data.Open Science is a set of principles and practices that aim to make scientific research from all fields accessible to everyone for the benefits of scientists and society as a whole. Open science is about making sure not only that scientific knowledge is accessible but also that the production of that knowledge itself is inclusive, equitable and sustainable.

The events are open to everyone working at or affiliated with a Swedish research institute or university. We welcome all researchers, educational professionals, staff, RDM professionals, and others with an interest in life sciences, from all university levels. The events are informal and inclusive, so feel welcome to join and participate in our interesting discussions!

The events will be recorded and published openly after the seminars on the SciLifeLab YouTube channel. The slides will be made available at our SciLifeLab Data Repository.More information about SciLifeLab Data Centre and NBIS joint Open Science seminar series: https://www.scilifelab.se/data/scilifelab-data-management-seminar-series/

If you have suggestions for topics or presentations, please contact us at data-management@scilifelab.seFor more information or inquiries, please contact us at data-management@scilifelab.se

Application of advanced imaging technology for cell-type specific neural, neuromodulatory and astrocytic signalling in vivo
2026-03-24 15:00 - 16:00 | Milkyway SciLifeLab Solna, Tomtebodavägen 23, Solna
Sofie Ährlund-Richter, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Title: Prefrontal Cortex Feedback Reshapes the Representation and Routing of Visual Information

How does the brain determine which sensory signals are behaviorally relevant, and how are these signals routed across cortical networks? Top-down feedback from the prefrontal cortex (PFC) has long been proposed to play a central role in shaping sensory processing, yet the circuit-level mechanisms by which distinct prefrontal pathways modulate sensory representations remain poorly understood.

Here we investigate how anatomically and functionally distinct prefrontal subregions influence visual processing in primary visual cortex (VISp). Using a combination of axonal tracing, two- photon calcium imaging, and projection-specific chemogenetic perturbations in behaving mice, we show that inputs from the anterior cingulate cortex (ACA) and orbitofrontal cortex (ORB) exert dissociable and context-dependent effects on visual responses. Our findings demonstrate that prefrontal feedback is not a uniform gain signal but instead operates through modular pathways that differentially shape sensory representations according to internal state and behavioral context. Building on these results, we are developing next-generation in vivo approaches to uncover the cell-type-specific logic underlying cortical communication. By combining spectral unmixing–based two-photon imaging, projection-defined labeling, and targeted perturbations, we can simultaneously image multiple, defined VISp neuron populations distinguished by their long-range outputs. This strategy enables direct observation of how prefrontal feedback redistributes visual information across parallel cortical output channels in real time.

Together, this work reveals how top-down control dynamically restructures sensory representations and routing in the cortex. By defining circuit principles of prefrontal modulation, these findings provide a framework for understanding how disruptions in feedback control may contribute to altered perception and cognition in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Talk 2:

Iakovos Lazaridis, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Title: Striosomes and astrocytes shape striatal dopamine during behavioral state transitions

Abstract: Basal ganglia circuits, modulated by striatal dopamine, support reinforcement learning, action selection, and behavioral flexibility. Integrating two independent lines of evidence, we propose a framework in which striosomes set nigrostriatal output while dorsal striatal astrocytes gate local dopamine availability during behavioral state transitions. Using projection-defined circuit mapping and perturbations, we show that striosomal D1 spiny projection neurons (SPNs) project directly to the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc), whereas striosomal D2 SPNs route indirectly via a central external globus pallidus node, forming opponent pathways whose net influence on dopamine differs from matrix circuits. Astrocytes exhibit Ca²⁺ transients time-locked to SNpc-evoked dopamine release, and selective astrocyte activation reduces subsequent dopamine availability without affecting spontaneous locomotion. In a probabilistic decision task, large astrocytic Ca²⁺ events are enriched during disengagement and precede re-engagement; astrocyte signals predict upcoming state transitions and engagement more strongly than trial outcomes, consistent with state-level regulation rather than action coding. Dopamine-dependent astrocytic adenosine release may provide a local mechanism for regulating dopamine availability while biasing D1/D2 signaling, enabling flexible rebalancing of striatal output across behavioral states. Together, these results link striosomal compartmental architecture to motivational control and reveal a glial gate on dopamine dynamics.

Host: Iskra Pollak Dorocic

What stories can metabolites tell? Exploring data from cohorts to the individual
2026-03-25 14:00 - 15:00 | Online event via Zoom
Gabi Kastenmüller, Computational Health Center / ICB, Helmholtz Munich

Abstract

Metabolites provide a direct readout of biological processes and therefore offer unique opportunities to study metabolism across populations and within individuals. In this talk, I will give examples on how analysis and integration of metabolomics data from large cohort studies as well as smaller, more specific challenge studies can help uncover relationships between metabolism, genetic risk, environmental exposures, and health. The presentation will highlight three complementary perspectives on human metabolomics studies, using examples from our own research. First, I will show how genetic variation influences metabolite levels and how shared metabolite signatures across diseases can point to common biological pathways, providing a molecular, mechanism-oriented view on disease. Next, I will illustrate how combining metabolite and genetic information may help stratify patients in the context of Alzheimer’s disease and its prevention. Finally, I will discuss the potential of longitudinal metabolite profiles to monitor health and capture individual metabolic changes over time. Rather than focusing on technical aspects, the talk aims to inspire thinking about metabolomics data analysis as a helpful tool in exploring metabolism in health and disease.

Biography

Dr. Gabi Kastenmüller is an expert in the analysis, integration, and interpretation of metabolomics data and is heading a research group on Systems Metabolomics at Helmholtz Munich, Germany. Having a background in chemistry and computer science, she moved into bioinformatics for her PhD, which she received from the Technische Universität München, Germany, in 2009. During her postdoctoral training at Karsten Suhre’s lab and a four-months stay as a visiting scientist at Metabolon Inc., USA, she found her passion in metabolomics and was involved in the analysis of one of the first mass spectrometry-based metabolomics studies at large scale in two population-based cohorts. Inspired by the substantial metabolic individuality uncovered in these studies, she started her own lab in 2011 with the goal to understand the role of metabolism and metabolic individuality in the development, treatment, and prevention of complex human diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease. Thereby, her team is particularly interested in a detailed, systems-level understanding of which factors, such as genotype, lifestyle, and microbiome composition, shape and influence one’s personal metabolome and its changes over time. To this end, her group experienced in computational biology collaborates with epidemiologists, clinicians, nutrition and sports scientists. Leveraging and integrating large-scale omics data within these collaborations enabled characterization of the human metabolic individuality in many cohorts and conditions, including individuality in the response to physiological stimuli such as exercise or intake of specific food.

Host: Elena Dracheva, NBIS (elena.dracheva@scilifelab.se)

Broadcast link (live event): https://umu.zoom.us/j/61077879409

The talk is sponsored by the NBIS course Introduction to Metabolomics Data Analysis.

A recording will also be available on the NBIS YouTube channel.

Advanced multimodal nano-analytical capabilities on FIB instruments using SIMS: new developments, applications and prospects
2026-03-25 15:00 - 16:00
This month’s Mass Spectrometry Imaging webinar introduces the development of an advanced multimodal imaging approach at nanoscale resolution, integrating techniques such as focused ion beam imaging, helium ion microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, scanning probe microscopy, and NanoSIMS. Applications across a range of research areas will be presented.

🕒 Time: 15:00–16:00 (presentation and discussion)☕ Followed by: Informal discussion with the speaker, 16:00–16:30📍 Format: Zoom

Zoom link

Meeting ID: 615 5936 0769Passcode: [REDACTED]

About the speaker

Dr. Tom Wirtz is Head of Unit for Scientific Instrumentation and Process Technology (SIPT) at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST). He is the author or co-author of 160 peer-reviewed articles and holds 13 patents.

His research focuses on nano-analytics, combining high lateral resolution with highly sensitive chemical analysis through correlative approaches. Examples include the in situ integration of secondary ion mass spectrometry with focused ion beam (FIB) instruments, helium ion microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and scanning probe microscopy.

Speaker

Schematic overview of the different FIB techniques. See Roadmap for focused ion beam technologies, Appl. Phys. Rev. 10, 041311

AESPIRE & Clinical Genomics Epigenetics
2026-03-26 10:00 - 2026-03-27 17:00 | Quality Hotel Ekoxen, Linköping, Klostergatan 68, Linköping, 582 23, Sweden
Epigenetics & AI Meeting

Register here

On March 26-27th there will be a meeting in Linköping cohosted between SciLifeLab Clinical Genomics and the AESPIRE excellence cluster group and we have an exciting line-up of speakers.
The theme for the meeting is epigenetics and AI and we will be especially looking at practical applications in the areas of forensic science, rare disease and cancer. The meeting will consist of a number of sessions with leading experts in the area, with the opportunity to network and discuss current plans for implementation of novel techniques as well as possible future directions. There will also be presentations from the PROMISE (Tuuli Lappalainen) and AIDx (René Kaden) excellence clusters at the meeting.

There will also be updates on long-read sequencing applications, industry presentations and chances to interact with a range of attendees working in this interdisciplinary area. Registration is free, please use the link provided no later than March 24.

Organizers
Colum Walsh & Anita Öst, on behalf of the Clinical Genomics Epigenetics and AESPIRE teams

Sessions include

Forensics
Fertility
Rare Disease
AI approaches
Cancer
Leveraging large clinical datasets

Speakers include
Manfred Kayser, Erasmus University, Netherlands
Colm Nestor, Linköping University
Bekim Sadikovic, London Health Centre Ontario
Frida Abel, Sahlgrenska Hospital
Skarphéðinn Halldórsson, Oslo University Hospital
Fredrik Heintz, Linköping University
David Gisselsson Nord, Lund University
…and many more national and international guests! Scroll down to see the final program.

For accommodation, we recommend Quality Hotel Ekoxen, the location of the meeting, or Scandic Frimurarhotellet, close to the railway station. Note that breakfast may be booked separately.

Ekoxen

Scandic

Program

AESPIRE & 2nd CG Epigenetics Workshop Program_v11Download

From Ancient Mammoth RNA to modern RNA-seq
2026-03-27 13:00 - 14:30 | Air&Fire, SciLifeLab Stockholm, Tomtebodavägen 23A, Solna, Sweden
Ancient RNA expression profiles from the extinct woolly mammoth

Ancient DNA has revolutionized our understanding of extinct and extant organisms, enabling the reconstruction of lost ecosystems and their long-gone inhabitants. However, our knowledge of ancient biology has been largely constrained to information derived from short DNA fragments or low-resolution protein sequences. While these have yielded remarkable insights, DNA primarily captures the static genetic code, and proteins merely provide a partial view of the coding fraction of the genome. Trapped in between lies RNA, a molecular intermediate long dismissed as too transient and unstable to survive far beyond cell death.

In this seminar, I describe our work extracting, sequencing and characterizing RNA expression profiles from 10 woolly mammoths dating to the Late Pleistocene. One of these, dated to ~39,000 YBP, yielded sufficient detail to recover tissue-specific biological functions essential for skeletal muscle and skin metabolism. Our findings represent the oldest ancient RNA sequences recorded to date, enabling the reconstruction of transcriptional signatures in the extinct woolly mammoth.

With these results, I will showcase the potential to study ancient RNA molecules decoding preserved transcriptomes from deep time, and propose future directions and perspectives on the unrealized potential of RNA to illuminate developmental biology, infectious disease history, and the dynamic regulatory landscapes of ancient life.

About the main speaker:

Dr. Emilio Mármol Sánchez is a research fellow in the Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics at the University of Copenhagen. Trained as a veterinarian and bioinformatician, he began his research career in Barcelona by studying gene regulatory networks and RNA biology in domestic animals. After completing his PhD in 2020, he transitioned into the emerging field of ancient transcriptomics, where during his postdoctoral work in Stockholm he developed novel laboratory and computational approaches for the isolation, sequencing, and computational analysis of ancient and historical RNA from extinct species.

Now based in Copenhagen, his research is focused on a multi-omics approach to develop novel methods applied to historical and ancient animal specimens, spanning short- and long-read DNA sequencing, RNA profiling, chromatin reconstruction, epigenetic inference, and spatial deconvolution. Through such integrative framework, his work aims to reconstruct the functional biology of the past using molecular technologies of the present.

About the event:

The event is organized by BioNordika AB. Marc Friedländer (SU) will introduce the event and Klaus Tangsgaard (New England Biolabs) will talk about emerging RNA-seq approaches after the ancient RNA seminar.

Register here

The Silent Crisis in Oncology Real-World Evidence — and How to Fix It
2026-03-27 15:00 - 16:00 | Online event via Zoom
Asieh Golozar, founder and CEO of Nemesis Health

The programme includes a 40-minute talk followed by a 20-minute Q&A session

Biography

Asieh Golozar is the founder and CEO of Nemesis Health, a company dedicated to progressing cancer research through large scale real-world evidence from a network of cancer centers. She is a physician-epidemiologist and biostatistician with more than 20 years of experience in real-world evidence generation, observational research and evaluation of healthcare interventions within government, academia, and industry.

Asieh holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Health Sciences in Biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, supported by a postdoctoral research fellowship award with the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. She earned her medical degree from Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

After her education, she joined the faculty at the Johns Hopkins University Department of Epidemiology, where she focused on cancer and diabetes epidemiology, the application of epidemiologic and statistical methods for robust synthesis of evidence from epidemiologic data and applying evidence-based findings to strengthen public heath infrastructure and policies. She then transitioned into industry roles at Bayer AG, AstraZeneca, and Regeneron, where she led lifecycle management and real-world evidence generation activities in oncology, women’s health, and other therapeutic areas.

Currently, Golozar holds the position of professor of the practice at Northeastern University, where she is engaged in epidemiological methodology and statistics for real-world evidence. She holds faculty appointments at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Epidemiology and the Division of GeneralInternal Medicine at the School of Medicine. Additionally, she is the leader of the Oncology Working Group at OHDSI, a global open source and open science collaborative.

Abstract

High-quality real-world evidence (RWE) in oncology requires detailed clinical data, standardized representations of tumor characteristics, and analytic methods that can be reproduced across institutions and health systems. Most oncology datasets remain fragmented, differ in structure, and lack the granularity needed to study treatment patterns, biomarker-driven care, disease trajectories, and outcomes at scale. The OMOP Common Data Model, together with oncology-specific conventions, provides a harmonized framework for representing diagnoses, histology, stage, biomarkers, treatments, and outcomes in a way that supports transparent and reproducible analytics.

FALCON (Federated Alliance for Large-Scale Oncology Research) is a growing international network built on this foundation. It enables federated studies using shared methods while keeping data securely within each institution. Early applications of this approach have demonstrated its ability to characterize real-world treatment patterns, evaluate guideline relevance, study disease progression, and support methodological development across diverse populations and health-care environments.

This talk will present the scientific foundations, methodological considerations, and early results demonstrating how standardized data and federated analytics can advance oncology RWE. The work highlights opportunities for deeper collaboration across pathology, oncology, genomics, and data science to build scalable, trustworthy real-world evidence for cancer research.

Registration

About Clinical Talks

Clinical Talks returns with a new season!

After seven successful seasons and over seventy dedicated speakers, we are excited to continue showcasing the contributions of our diverse clinical, academic, and industry life science community. This season will feature ten insightful talks following our well-established format.

The overarching theme is “How to Achieve Feasible Implementation.” Sessions are held monthly ,usually on Fridays via Zoom, with occasional exceptions. Each talk will be followed by an engaging Q&A session, moderated by standing host Rikard Fred and a guest moderator with subject matter expertise to enrich the discussion.

In today’s rapidly evolving post-pandemic landscape, exploring how academic, clinical, and industry research, combined with technological advancements, can drive practical and sustainable solutions is crucial. Join us for an opportunity to gain fresh insights, expand your knowledge, and connect with experts shaping the future of life sciences!

Clinical Talks are organised by SciLifeLab.

User meeting for your multi-modal research projects
2026-04-09 09:00 - 10:30
Boost your research — Book a private SciLifeLab planning and feedback session for your multi-modal research projects!

Register here

Once we have received your registration, you will be sent the link to the online meeting.

Date: April 9, 9.00 – 10.30 Registration deadline: April 3

Multimodal molecular profiling and novel computational methods are transforming life science research, but also pose new challenges in study design, project resource planning and data management. SciLifeLab is a national resource of unique technologies and expertise available to life scientists, in areas such as biomedicine, ecology and evolution, aiming to bring scientists together across traditional boundaries and foster collaborations with industry, health care, public research organizations and international partners.

The first Thursday of every month at 9.00 (except July and August), SciLifeLab offers an opportunity to jointly meet with representatives across the SciLifeLab service platforms, to get feedback and help to plan, design, and refine new or ongoing multimodal research projects. Your project plans are discussed privately and remain confidential, and information will not be shared outside of the service platforms. Note that for most studies, follow-up meetings will be needed, but our aim for these meetings is to provide an easy-access entry point for an overarching planning of multimodal studies.

For studies focusing on a single technology only, please primarily contact our service platforms directly as described at the SciLifeLab homepage.

To make the best out of the allotted time, we ask you to provide some background information about your project, to help us ensure that the relevant experts are available to discuss your study.

Imag(in)ing the Future of Structural Biology
2026-04-13 09:00 - 2026-04-14 12:00 | BMC Room A1:107a, Husargatan 3, Uppsala, Sweden
The Symposium will start on April 13th at 9am and run for the whole day on April 13th and in the morning (9h00-12h00) of April 14th.

Following the meeting, there will be workshop on cryo-electron tomography organised by Thermo Fisher Scientific, starting with lunch at 12h15.

Both the Symposium and the workshop are free of charge, but registration is mandatory for organizational purposes.

registration

Program

Programme

Day 1 – April 13th Monday

08:00Registration, coffee09:00Welcome, FSD vision Stefan Knight, UU09:15Opening keynote lectureKristina Djinovic Carugo, Head of EMBL Grenoble10:00Invited talk Thomas Lane, DESY10:30Coffee Break10:45Invited talkThomas Usby, MAX-IV11:15Short presentations from local facility heads/representatives– cryoEM (Anna Sundborger Lunna and Marco Marcia)– X-ray and biophysics (Annette Roos, UU/SciLifeLab)12:00Lunch13:00Keynote lecture Ulrich Lorenz13:45Invited talkSuparna Sanyal, UU14:15Invited talkNick Pearce, LiU/UU & SciLifeLab14:45Short presentations from local facility heads/representatives– RNA dynamics (Marco Marcia)– Computational and time-resolved studies (Filipe Maia)15:30Coffee Break16:00“Functional macromolecular structural and dynamics in the AI era”Panel Discussion17:00Poster Session

Day 2 – April 14th Tuesday

09:00Invited talkMatthew Bowler, EMBL Grenoble / ESRF09:30Invited talkMarta Carroni, Stockholm University/SciLifeLab10:00Invited talkSebastian Westenhoff, UU/SciLifeLab10:30Short presentations from local facility heads/representatives– Mass spectrometry, Michael Landreh10:50Coffee break11:15Keynote lectureJan Ellenberg, SciLifeLab12:00Conclusion of open meeting and informationStefan Knight, UU12:15Lunch for participants in the cryo-ET workshop provided by ThermoFischer)13:00ThermoFisher cryo-ET workshop with live demo from Thermo Fisher Nanoport

Organising Committee

Stefan D KnightAnna Sundborger-LunnaMichael LandrehMarco MarciaFilipe Maia

Introduction to the Module System, VS Code, and Jupyter Notebook on Berzelius
2026-04-14 10:00 - 11:30 | Online event via Zoom
This event is a collaboration between National Supercomputer Centre (NSC) at Linköping University and SciLifeLab Data Centre.The training offers a practical introduction to the module system, VS Code, and Jupyter Notebook on Berzelius.

Date: Tuesday, April 14, 2026Time: 10:00 – 11:30Place: Online via Zoom (link provided upon registration)

Register

The session will cover:

how to find modules on Berzelius

load/unload modules

use modules in interactive or batch modes

how to use VS Code & Jupyter Notebook

By the end of the session, you will be able to navigate the modules system of Berzelius confidently along with use VS Code & Jupyter Notebook effectively for your research.Participants can also gain hands-on experience during then event. Please read the guidance to get temporary access to Berzelius. The online event is open for all current and prospective Berzelius users. Please read the eligibility requirements for accessing Berzelius before registering.

Schedule

TimeSession TitleSpeaker(s)10:00–10:45Introduction to the Module System on BerzeliusSoumi Chaki10:45–11:15How to use VS Code, and Jupyter Notebook on BerzeliusXuan Gu11:15–11:30Open Q&A SessionBerzelius Application Experts

General contact

This event is a collaboration between National Supercomputer Centre (NSC) at Linköping University and SciLifeLab Data Centre.

E-mail: soumi.chaki@liu.se (Soumi Chaki)

Peripheral Immunity, Microbial Communities, and the Power of Single-Cell Resolution
2026-04-16 15:00 - 16:30
Dr. Vanessa Dumeaux

Departments of Anatomy & Cell Biology, Biochemistry and Oncology, Western University, London, Canada

Short biography

Vanessa Dumeaux is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Biochemistry and Oncology at Western University (London, Canada). She holds a Doctorate in Pharmacy and a PhD in molecular epidemiology from the University of Tromsø and the University of Paris-South XI, and completed postdoctoral training at the Norwegian Radium Hospital, Princeton University, and the University of Paris Descartes. Her lab develops computational and genomic methods to identify tumoral, systemic, and microbial markers that predict cancer therapy outcomes, and to characterize microbial communities at single-cell resolution.

Title of the talk: Peripheral Immunity, Microbial Communities, and the Power of Single-Cell Resolution

Abstract

Single-cell and computational genomics are transforming our ability to dissect cell-level heterogeneity in complex biological systems, from human immune responses to microbial communities. In this talk, I will present our work applying these approaches to two areas of active research in my lab.

The first part focuses on the crosstalk between peripheral immunity and the tumor microenvironment in breast cancer. I will describe how we use single-cell profiling of blood and tumor to identify molecular interactions between a patient’s immune system and their disease, and how these interactions could inform clinical management of HER2-positive and triple-negative breast cancer.

I will close with a brief overview of how we extend similar computational and single-cell strategies to study microbial communities, from characterizing functional variation in the human gut microbiome to profiling heterogeneous drug responses in fungal pathogens.

Host: Stefania Giacomello

SciLifeLab Day Gothenburg 2026
2026-04-17 08:30 - 17:00 | RuNan, Chalmersplatsen 1, Gothenburg, 412 58, Sweden
Welcome to an inspiring full-day event bringing together researchers, experts, infrastructure representatives, and partners from across Sweden! SciLifeLab Day Gothenburg 2026 offers a unique meeting place for anyone working with – or curious about – advanced molecular life sciences, data-driven research, and translational innovation.

Registration

Registration

Registration is closed.

This event is free of charge, but please note that a fee of 750 SEK will be charged in case of no-shows without prior notice.

Event App

To make the most of your experience, we encourage you to download the Lyyti app (available on Google Play and Apple App Store), where you will find the latest updates.

About the event

Throughout the day, you’ll experience visionary talks, insights into cutting-edge research infrastructures, real-world use cases from industry and healthcare, and plenty of opportunities for networking. The program includes everything from flash talks and poster sessions to discussions on how SciLifeLab technologies are driving progress in academia, healthcare, and industry.

Event highlights include:

SciLifeLab’s future outlook with SciLifeLab Director Jan Ellenberg

A regional perspective on SciLifeLab’s role in western Sweden

Presentations from national infrastructures and platforms

Sessions focused on clinical translation and applications for academia and industry

Poster exhibitions by the infrastructure units and other SciLifeLab activites

Mingling and engaging discussions

Don’t miss the opportunity to dive into the latest developments in Swedish life science, make new connections, and explore the wide range of possibilities SciLifeLab offers for research and innovation. We look forward to welcoming you to a day full of inspiration and new insights!

Agenda

Download Agenda

Conference Booklet

08:30–10:00 | Morning Session
08:30–09:00Registration & Coffee

09:00–09:10Welcome RemarksCarina Mallard, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of GothenburgAnders Palmqvist, Vice President, Chalmers University of Technology

09:10–09:40The Future of Life Sciences and the Role of SciLifeLabJan Ellenberg, SciLifeLab Director, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm University & KTH Royal Institute of Technology

09:40–10:00SciLifeLab in the Gothenburg Region – Vision & ImpactElisabet Carlsohn, SciLifeLab Gothenburg Site Director, University of GothenburgOtto Savolainen, SciLifeLab Gothenburg Site Co-Director, Chalmers University of TechnologyMaria Faresjö, Head of Department, Life Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology

10:00–10:20 | Coffee Break

10:20–11:50 | Research Infrastructure in Focus
10:20–10:40SciLifeLab – A National Infrastructure for Molecular Life SciencesAnnika Jenmalm Jensen, SciLifeLab Infrastructure Director, Karolinska Institutet

10:40–11:50Flash Talk PresentationsSciLifeLab Research Infrastructure – Platforms & Technologies

11:50–12:50 | Lunch, Networking & Infrastructure Poster Session

12:50–14:30 | Translation to Healthcare
12:50–13:05Translation of technology and data-driven precision medicine – a research & infrastructure perspectivePäivi Östling, Associate Professor, Karolinska Institutet / SciLifeLab

13:05–13:20Translation from Discovery to Practice: From 6 Months to 20 Years – Bottlenecks and ChallengesMikael Kubista, co-founder and CEO, Precision Bioanalytics

13:20–13:35Infrastructure User Perspective: Steatotic Liver Disease Through a Proteome-Wide LensTanmoy Dutta, Doctoral Student, Institute of Medicine, University of Gothenburg

13:35–14:05Keynote: Precision medicine in the real worldBoubou Hallberg, CEO, Sahlgrenska University Hospital

14:05–14:30Panel Discussion

Moderator:

Charlotta Ljungman, Sahlgrenska University Hospital / University of Gothenburg

Panelists:

Jan Ellenberg, SciLifeLab Director, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm University & KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Mikael Kubista, co-founder and CEO, Precision Bioanalytics

Boubou Hallberg, CEO, Sahlgrenska University Hospital

Mats Lundqvist, Vice President for Utilization, innovation and lifelong learning, Chalmers

Cecilia Edebo, CEO, Sahlgrenska Science Park

Jan Holgersson, Vice Dean for Infrastructure and Facilities, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg

14:30–15:00 | Coffee Break & Infrastructure Poster Session

15:00–16:10 | Enabling Research & Innovation
15:00–15:15Towards Precision Nutrition for Cardiometabolic Disease Prevention – Reliance on high-throughput OMICsRikard Landberg, Head of Division, Food and Nutrition Science, Chalmers University of Technology

15:15–15:30Chemical Language Models for Drug Design and EngineeringRocío Mercado, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology

15:30–15:40Illumina Amplicon Sequencing for Environmental MonitoringMarina Panova, Researcher, Department of Marine Sciences, University of Gothenburg / Seanalytics

15:40–15:50A “Macrophage–Collagen Fragment Axis” in the Regulation of Adipose Tissue FunctionalityIngrid Wernstedt Asterholm, Professor, Department of Physiology, University of Gothenburg

15:50–16:00Glycotime: Circadian Rhythms in Mucus GlycansAlex Bennett, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Medical Biochemistry, University of Gothenburg

16:00–16:10 | Closing Remarks

16:10–17:00 | Networking & Mingle

Company exhibitions

Confirmed Exhibitors

Carl Zeiss

Waters Corporation

Proteintech Europe

Nordic Biosite

Thermo Fisher Scientific

Olink

BioNordika

Parse Biosciences

Göteborg & Co – Gothenburg Convention Bureau

Pixelgen Technologies

Fisher Scientific

Targeted long-read sequencing for clinical diagnostics
2026-04-17 09:00 - 10:00 | Online event via Zoom
Clinical Genomics Webinar Series

Clinical Genomics Uppsala is hosting this webinar as part of the Clinical Genomics Platform webinar series

How Targeted Long‑Read Sequencing is Transforming Diagnostic Accuracy and Workflow Integration in Hereditary Cancer and AML

Join us on Zoom

Accurate and comprehensive detection of pathogenic genetic variants is critical for effective diagnosis, risk assessment, and patient management in clinical settings. In this webinar, Clinical Genomics Uppsala presents how targeted long-read sequencing (TLRS) is being developed and implemented to advance molecular diagnostics across different disease areas.

In the first part, we focus on hereditary cancer diagnostics, where identifying pathogenic variants in cancer-associated genes is essential. We present the evaluation of a custom-designed TLRS panel using PacBio long-read sequencing technology, covering clinically relevant genes and demonstrating high sensitivity, improved resolution of complex genomic regions, and the ability to determine variant phasing. These advantages highlight the potential of TLRS to enhance diagnostic accuracy and support its integration into routine clinical workflows.

The second part addresses acute myeloid leukemia (AML), where rapid and comprehensive genetic characterization is crucial for risk stratification and treatment decisions. We showcase a long-read amplicon sequencing workflow based on Oxford Nanopore technology that consolidates the analysis of key clinically relevant genes—including TP53, FLT3, IDH1, IDH2 and NPM1—into a single assay. This unified approach reduces the need for multiple parallel tests, streamlining diagnostics while maintaining high clinical relevance.

Together, these presentations illustrate how targeted long-read sequencing can improve diagnostic efficiency, resolve complex genomic challenges, and pave the way for more integrated and informative clinical testing strategies.

Everyone is welcome so feel free to spread the details with anyone who may be interested. Hope to see you there!

Host: Ida Höijer, Project Coordinator, Clinical Genomics Uppsala

Invited speakers: Joakim Klar, Uppsala University Hospital & Rebecka Östlund, Uppsala University

AI Agent in Drug Discovery - Current Advance and Application
2026-04-17 10:00 - 11:00 | Online event via Zoom
Dinh Long Huynh

NBIS and SciLifeLab Data Centre arrange an open SciLifeLab AI Seminar Series aimed at knowledge-sharing about Artificial Intelligence and applications in the Life Science community. The seminar series is open to everyone. The seminar is run over Zoom on the third Friday of the month during academic terms, typically between 10 and 11 am, with approx. 45 min presentation and 15 min discussion.

When: April 17, 10:00-11:00

Where: Zoom http://meet.nbis.se/ainw

Speaker: Dinh Long HuynhUppsala University (Ola Spjuth group)Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been shaping drug discovery for decades — from the early use of predictive models to the recent explosion of generative AI. Today, we are entering a third wave: Agentic AI. Together with traditional predictive or generative models, as well as computational and robot execution tools, agentic AI embodies autonomy in drug discovery — it perceives its environment, reasons about goals, and takes actions with minimal human intervention. This talk explores the evolution from generative to agentic systems and why this shift matters for life sciences. We will unpack the architectural foundations of agentic AI, showing how they enable closed-loop discovery — where AI not only designs hypotheses or molecules but also plans, executes, refines, and learns from experiments. Through real-world case studies and a short live demonstration, we will illustrate how agentic AI can transform the research cycle — accelerating hypothesis generation, optimizing experiment design, and integrating multimodal data across biology and chemistry. We will also discuss the current challenges and the road ahead for agentic AI systems in biopharma R&D.

To stay updated, you can join our email list by contacting ai-network@scilifelab.se

Join Seminar

Training Hub Webinar - The New SciLifeLab Training Catalogue
2026-04-17 14:00 - 15:00 | Online event via Zoom
The SciLifeLab Training Portal is dedicated to connecting people with courses, workshops, and other training delivered by SciLifeLab. We are happy to announce that the Portal is now open as a central training catalogue where the life science community can see all regularly-occurring or self-paced training at SciLifeLab — even if there isn’t an upcoming session scheduled! The Training Hub would like to invite the SciLifeLab community to a webinar where we will showcase how to add your training to the SciLifeLab Training Catalogue.

See training Catalogue

We warmly welcome you this webinar to learn:

How to add training to the Training Catalogue

How to use the Catalogue to create upcoming session announcements

What happens after you submit to the Catalogue

What information is needed for complete metadata that meets Open Science & FAIR standards

Features coming soon to the Training Portal!

Included in this webinar is time to ask questions of the Training Hub, give feedback, as well as time to test out adding training to the catalogue.

If you are interested in this webinar but unable to attend, or if you have any questions about training announcements at SciLifeLab, get in touch with us at traininghub@scilifelab.se .

Stockholm Single Cell and Spatial Genomics Symposium 2026
2026-04-20 09:00 - 17:30 | IVA Conference center, Grev Turegatan 16, Stockholm
The Stockholm Single Cell and Spatial Genomics Symposium 2026 is a national meeting dedicated to advancing single-cell and spatial genomics technologies and their application in basic, applied, and translational research.

Building on the success of the 2024 symposium, this full-day event will once again bring together leading Swedish and international researchers, technology developers, and industry partners. The program will feature keynote lectures, scientific talks, technology showcases, and ample networking opportunities, with a strong focus on state-of-the-art methods and innovative applications.

Registration

This event is currently fully booked

By fostering knowledge exchange and community building, the symposium aims to accelerate the adoption of single-cell and spatial genomics approaches across Sweden and further strengthen the national research ecosystem supported by SciLifeLab and NGI.

Organizers

National Genomics Infrastructure

National Genomics Infrastructure (NGI)

In Situ Sequencing

In Situ Sequencing

Program

Agenda.SCSG_2026 (1)Download

The Global Open Research Commons International Model: A path towards greater interoperability for digital research infrastructures
2026-04-21 11:00 - 12:00 | Online event via Zoom
The Global Open Research Commons (GORC) International Model (starting with its Essential Elements) has been in development since 2016 within Research Data Alliance Interest and Working Groups. It is now a mature way to guide implementation decisions, a framework for new commons implementers, and a shared language for interoperability discussions. This talk will provide an overview of the GORC approach, its current uptake, and its future plans. It should be of interest to anyone concerned with interoperability within and between DRI.Presenter: Andrew Treloar (PhD), DRI Consultant

This event is part of the SciLifeLab Open Science seminar series, an event series by the SciLifeLab Data Centre and NBIS joint Data Management team.The goal of the events in this seminar series is to provide interesting interactive seminars around topics related to Research Data Management and Open Science in general, and to foster discussions around best practices. More information about SciLifeLab Data Centre and NBIS joint Open Science seminar series: https://www.scilifelab.se/data/scilifelab-data-management-seminar-series/ If you have suggestions for topics or presentations, please contact us at data-management@scilifelab.se For more information or inquiries, please contact us at data-management@scilifelab.se

Slides: Will be available after the event

Recording: Will be available after the event

Narrative profile template GORC model V1.1.

More Information

This event is part of the SciLifeLab Open Science seminar series, an event series by the SciLifeLab Data Centre and NBIS joint Data Management team.The goal of the events in this seminar series is to provide interesting interactive seminars around topics related to Research Data Management and Open Science in general, and to foster discussions around best practices.

Research Data Management (RDM) concerns the organization, storage, preservation, and sharing of data that is collected and analyzed during a research project. Proper planning and management of research data will make project management easier and more efficient while projects are being performed. It also facilitates sharing and allows others to validate as well as reuse the data.Open Science is a set of principles and practices that aim to make scientific research from all fields accessible to everyone for the benefits of scientists and society as a whole. Open science is about making sure not only that scientific knowledge is accessible but also that the production of that knowledge itself is inclusive, equitable and sustainable.

The events are open to everyone working at or affiliated with a Swedish research institute or university. We welcome all researchers, educational professionals, staff, RDM professionals, and others with an interest in life sciences, from all university levels. The events are informal and inclusive, so feel welcome to join and participate in our interesting discussions!

The events will be recorded and published openly after the seminars on the SciLifeLab YouTube channel. The slides will be made available at our SciLifeLab Data Repository.More information about SciLifeLab Data Centre and NBIS joint Open Science seminar series: https://www.scilifelab.se/data/scilifelab-data-management-seminar-series/

If you have suggestions for topics or presentations, please contact us at data-management@scilifelab.seFor more information or inquiries, please contact us at data-management@scilifelab.se
