Biomedical Informatics and Systems Medicine

Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) based approaches represent a powerful tool to unravel different scientific questions aiming at studying the biology of our bodies’ cells. We use these methods to analyze genomes, transcriptomes, cistromes and even proteomes in unprecedented depth and in a systematic fashion. We use the information gathered by these approaches in order to study cellular processes in healthy and diseased cells, tissues and organisms. In order to interpret the vast amounts of experimental data acquisitioned by these techniques, we develop bioinformatics and systems biology approaches aiming at a more holistic understanding of the regulatory underpinnings of the processes governing cellular differentiation and the consequences of malfunctioning of these mechanisms in the context of disease. Next to our activities within basic scientific research, we support groups working at different levels of clinical sciences, involving large studies of cohorts in disease areas like infections of the lung, cancer or rare diseases