Associate Partners

The CompBioMed Centre of Excellence aims to build strong and fruitful collaborative relationships between our core and associate partners by sharing resources and ideas. You can learn more about the outcomes of the active collaborations that some of our existing Associate Partners are involved in here.

CompBioMed has always been user-focussed and from the start we have endeavoured to bring in institutions that will benefit from and be of benefit to our Centre of Excellence. The Associate Partner scheme allows these institutions to interact more proactively with us, and us with them. We have almost 50 Associate Partners, which are listed below, and we are keen to continue growing. We aim to use our Centre of Excellence to meet and share ideas and resources worldwide.

Below are details of some of the benefits of joining as an Associate Partner of CompBioMed. If you are interested and would like more information, please contact the project manager, Emily Lumley (e.lumley@ucl.ac.uk)

The list of opportunities and benefits for Associate Partners includes:

  • Access to and provision of project resources including HPC facilities
  • Access to and provision of software
  • Access to and provision of training materials
  • Invitations to project meetings
  • Invitations to our workshops
  • Invitations to our training events
  • Listing as an associate partner on the CompBioMed website
  • Participation in the Innovation Exchange Programme
  • Participation in Incubator Coordination
  • Possible participation in the CompBioMed Innovation Advisory Board
  • Listing of software services on the CompBioMed Software Hub

Below is the current list of CompBioMed Associate Partners:

Avicenna Alliance is a non-profit organisation made up of a partnership between academics and industries that have a commercial or research interest in the development of in silico medicine. Contact for Avicenna Alliance is the Secretary General, Thierry Marchal: secgen@avicenna-alliance.com

Birmingham City University is located in the UK. The Centre for Cyber Security is a new research centre formed in 2013 focused on allying the technological, economic or societal implications to combat cyber threats by new security and privacy practices. Head of the Centre is: Professor Ali Abdallah

Brunel University London is a dynamic institution. The Computer Science Department specialises in both healthcare/biomedical informatics and digital economy/ business. Dr Derek Groen is a Lecturer in Simulation and Modelling who specialises in multiscale simulation, high performance computing and distributed computing.

GlaxoSmithKline is a large pharmaceutical company based in the UK. We have a number of collaborations underway between partners working on in silico testing of medicines and drug discovery.

DNAnexus consists of experts in computational biology and standards compliant secure cloud computing, working together to facilitate the sharing and analysis of genomic data and its application to issues of human health. Dr Fiona Ford is General Manager at DNAnexus and is based in the UK.

The London Science Museum is the home of human ingenuity, they aim to inspire visitors with award-winning exhibitions, iconic objects and stories of incredible scientific achievement. They made it possible for us to premier our Virtual Human film at one of their Lates events in September 2017. Dr Roger Highfield is the Director of External Affairs at the Science Museum Group.

The University of Leeds was established in 1904 and is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK. Dr Sarah Harris is a Lecturer in Biological Physics at the University and uses high performance computing to model biomolecules aiming to cover all the time and length-scales of relevance to molecular biology

The VPH Institute is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to ensure that the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) is fully realised, universally adopted and effectively used both in research and clinic. Contact point is VPHi Manager, Martina Contin

The United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), founded in 1976 by the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, is the first national university and the top-ranked university in the United Arab Emirates. Dr Alya A. Arabi , Associate Professor of Chemistry from the College of Medicine and Health Sciences at the UAEU, is mainly interested in the study of biological systems using multiscale computational methods.

Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS) is a multidisciplinary, private non-profit resesarch institute. The Molecular and Cellular Modelling (MCM) group led by Prof. Rebecca Wade develops and applies molecular modelling and simulation techniques to study proteins and how they interact with their molecular binding partners. Dr Kashif Sadiq works in the group on various aspects of molecular kinetics, physical modelling of macromolecular assembly and enzyme catalysis within phase-separated membrane-less organelles.​

The Hartree Centre's mission is to transform the competitiveness of UK industry by accelerating the adoption of data-centric computing, big data and cognitive technologies. They want UK industry to fully embrace and integrate the latest digital and cognitive technologies into their businesses, to outperform global competitors, grown the economy and maintain the UK's position at the forefront of industrial innovation. Please contact CompBioMed for contact details.

The Elliott and Warner groups at the University of Southampton combine computational modelling, structural biology and in vivo approaches to produce internationally leading research in the field of immunology. Prof Tim Elliott is professor of experimental medicine within Medicine at the University of Southampton, Dr Joern Werner is Reader in Structural Biology within Biological Sciences at the University of Southampton.

KINDI works closely with Qatar and Qatar University community by promoting quality research programs in the vital area of computer and information sciences and engineering. Prof Abbes Amira has a background in Computer Engineering with a focus on embedded systems and HPC in connection with health applications and, in particular, medical imaging/video processing, biometrics and security. Dr Noora Fetais has been a Qatari faculty member at the department of Computer Science and Engineering at Qatar University of 15 years. Her expertise is in visualising and interpreting data.

University Católica de Murcia, Structural Bioinformatics and High Performance Computing Research Group (UCAM BIO-HPC) work in the exploitation of High Performance Computing Architectures for the development, acceleration and application of bioinformatics applications. Prof Horacio Emilio Perez Sanchez has contributed to computational and physical chemistry with several methodological developments, implementing them in HPC architectures so that they can be accessed by other researchers either as standalone software packages or web tools.

The group at Aix Marseille University are working on specific aspects of the human bronchial tree, to progress on the understanding and the medical treatment of chronic respiratory diseases, such as COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases) and severe asthma. Dr Julien Favier is colluder of the ITC team of the M2P2 lab and is head of the master of mechanical engineering at Aix Marseille University

The Working Group on e-Cardiology (formerly Computers in Cardiology), established in 1996, is one of the 15 Working Groups that constitute the scientific backbone of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). It serves as a multidisciplinary platform for basic, translational and clinical scientists who are at the forefront of cardiovascular health care innovation using a wide spectrum of computational and digital health technologies. The Working Group aims to create adoption of advanced digital technologies in the field of cardiology and thereby reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease. Prof Polychronis Dilaveris (Athens, Greece) is the current Working Group Chair and Prof Joost Lumens (Maastricht, Netherlands) is the WG Past-Chair and Working Group’s representative in CompBioMed.

Alces Software formed in 2008 by a group of IT professionals with the aim of simplifying software configuration and management for Linux-powered high performance compute cluster and storage systems. Alces Flight is part of this group and their aim is to deliver complete, fully-featured high performance compute clusters that meet the requirements of a divers user base. Cristin Merritt is the Partner Manager for Alces Flight.

The Academic Computer Centre Cyfronet AGH was established 40 years ago and is established by the National Committee for Scientific Research as the unit leader in the operation and expansion of the hardware base of the high performance computers as well as the urban and academic network. Marian Bubak is adjunct at the Institute of Computer Science and ACC Cyfronet AGH, Krakow and a Professor of Distributed System Engineering at UvA. His research interests include parallel and distributed computing, grid systems, and e-science.

Electric Ant Lab BV (EAL) is an independent private research laboratory providing contract-research consulting and simulation services in the field of rheology and transport of complex fluids. Founder and CSO of Electric Ant Lab Dr Eric Lorenz is also a guest researcher at the University of Amsterdam.

Element Digital Engineering is a division of Element Materials Technology, a global business engaged with substantial work in life science domains. Element Digital Engineering undertakes performance analysis using HPC facilitated modelling & simulation on medical equipment and in smart biomedical testing. Harvey Stubbs is a simulation Team Leader with lead responsibility for biomedical analysis.

ITMO University is one of 21 universities in Russia awarded a federal grant to improve the position in the world university rating by 2020. Prof Andrey Svitenkov is Associate Professor of High-Performance of the Computing Department and Engineer of eScience at the Research Institute and his recent work concentrates on the modelling of biomechanics processes, especially hemodynamics.

Pozlab is an independent research and development laboratory conducting its service activity in the R&D sector as well as in the area of clinical studies. Pozlab has got experience of providing industry standard to drug development formulation issues, including development of immediate and modified release formulations, bioavailability enhancement of poorly soluble compounds, biopharmaceutics studies, process transfer and scale-up, manufacturing of clinical batches. Dr Anna Krause is co-founder of Pozlab and is QC Manager

Qatar Robotic Surgery Centre (QRSC) is a centre dedicated to producing technological innovations through research, development and training (i.e.skills development) in the delivery of surgical care and interventions as part of Hamad Medical Corporation. Dr Abdulla Al-Ansari is currently Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Surgical Services at Hamad Medical Corporation, and is actively involved in directing and participating in multiple R&D projects. Dr Julien Abinahed is an Academic Research Scientist at QRSC at the department of surgery, where he manages R&D activities.

Microsoft will facilitate access to the Microsoft Azure HPC cloud service. Microsoft Research performs research within Microsoft but also collaborates in and supports research around the world well beyond the company itself. Dr Kenji Takeda is Director of the Microsoft Azure for Research programme. He has extensive experience in Cloud Computing, Data Science, High Performance and High Productivity Computing, Data-intensive Science, Scientific Workflows, Scholarly Communication, Engineering and Educational Outreach.

The Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (NAS RA) is conducting research in varying fields of cellular and molecular biology.The Bioinformatics Group studies computational biology and is focused on development and application of algorithms aimed at integration and systems level analysis of high-throughput -omics data to understand processes guiding pathomechanisms of complex human disorders. Dr Arsen Arakelyan is Director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Head of the Bioinformatics Group. Dr Lilit Nersisyan is a Researcher in the Bioinformatics Group and Adjunct lecturer at the American University of Armenia

Diavita Ltd addresses recent advances in data mining, machine learning and predictive analysis of the growing volume of heterogeneous health data that is emerging from both real-time, on-line and offline systems and that exists in a variety of formats, types and dimensions. Dr Dimiter Dimitrov is founder of Diavita and has developed a strategic research and innovation agenda defined by the roadmap of the European Public Private Partnership (PPP) on Big Data Value.

Dassault Systèmes, the 3DEXPERIENCE Company, provides businesses and people with virtual universes to imagine sustainable innovations. Its 3DEXPERIENCE Platform leverages the Company's world-leading 3D software applications to transform the way products are designed, produced and supported, enabling businesses to craft delightful customer experiences. Dr Steve Levine is senior Director of Health and Life Science and Exec. Director of the Living Heart Project at Dassault Systems SIMULIA. Clint Davies Taylor is Sales Director for SIMULIA EuroNorth Academia and works very closely with the Life Sciences team at Dassault Systèmes coordinating our relationships with many leading Life Sciences Researches in Europe

RAR-M Therapeutics is a drug development company working towards understanding, treating and potentially reversing neurodegenerative diseases. Their primary interests in motor neurone (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS) disease through a novel dual-acting lead candidate, which may also be valuable in treating the closely linked with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) disease. Prof Andy Whiting is the Chemistry Director of the company and contact for CompBioMed.

InSilicoTrials is the first cloud-based platform that provides healthcare companies and researchers with easy-to-use tools to perform computational modelling and simulation in pharmaceutical and medical devices development. Luca Emili is CEO of InSilicoTrials and can be contacted for questions relating to the company.

Diamond Light Source is the UK's synchrotron science facility. Diamond's stat-of-the-art facilities and world class people act as agents of change, addressing 21st century challenges such as disease, clean energy and food security. Diamond research supports new medicines, technologies and advances of all kinds. Andrew Richards is the Head of Scientific Computing at Diamond and can be contacted for questions and collaborations.

EnsembleMD is a startup formed to provide consultancy, software, tools and services for the rapid, accurate and reliable prediction of measurable macroscopic properties from molecular dynamics. Our flagship product is designed to facilitate the calculation of drug binding affinities, thereby reducing the cost and time to market in drug development for our key clients in the Pharma industry. Chief Technology Officer, Dr Stefan Zasada can be contacted for enquiries on the company

ANSYS is the global leader in engineering simulation, a technology bringing clarity and insight to our customer’s most complex design challenges through the broadest portfolio of fast, accurate and reliable simulation tools. ANSYS technology enables organizations in all industries to imagine high-quality, innovative and sustainable product designs that have an accelerated time to market. Theirry Marchal is the Global Industry Director for Healthcare. He leads the medical devices, pharmaceutical and biotech strategy of ANSYS through the in silico and personalized medicine evolution by closely interacting with industrial innovators and SMEs, academic leaders and governmental and regulatory authorities such as the FDA and the EMA..

Medtronic is the world's largest medical technology company, offering an unprecedented breadth and depth of innovative therapies to fulfil their Mission of alleviating pain, restoring health and extending life. With a global reach that extends to more than 160 countries, they have a deep understanding of many universal healthcare challenges. Frederic Turquier is Director of R&D for Surgical Innovations and is the principle contact for the company with CompBioMed.

The Laboratory of Experimental Medicine (LME) at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) handles all biological tests suitable for (pre)-clinical and has a long experience in fundamental medical research. They produce recombinant myeloperoxidase, monoclonal antibody: material instrumental for the study of atherosclerosis (test bench for arteries, device for fibrinolysis). Karim Zouaoui Boudjeltia is the Director of the LME.

Pie Medical Imaging (PMI) develops software for quantitative analysis in cardiology and radiology and is well-known for its product CAAS (Cardiovascular Angiographic Analysis System). PMI is a world leader in cardiovascular image analysis. The CAAS software assists physicians in the diagnosis and treatment of patients and is also used in research to study the efficiency of new treatment methods. Contact within PMI for CompBioMed is Jean-Paul Aben, Director of Research and Development.

AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven biopharmaceutical business that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialisation of prescription medicines, primarily for the treatment of cardiovascular, metabolic, respiratory, inflammation, autoimmune, oncology, infection and neuroscience diseases. AstraZeneca operates in over 100 countries. The innovative portfolio of medicines of AstraZeneca are used by millions of patients worldwide. Ola Engkvist is Team Leader/Associate Director working in Cheminformatics, Machine Learning, Bioinformatics and Data Mining and is the contact point for CompBioMed activities

The Foundation for Research on Information Technologies in Society (IT’IS) is an independent, non-profit research foundation dedicated to improving and advancing the quality of people’s lives by enhancing the safety and quality of emerging electromagnetic technologies. IT’IS is in possession of an anatomical library, which we are interested in advertising further from CompBioMed Software Hub. IT’IS have currently signed an NDA with the Centre for Computational Science at UCL and they are now working on their first virtual human simulation. There is more information about the Mission of the Foundation and in particular about their research initiative IT'IS for Health on the website. Dr Esra Neufeld is the project leader for computational life sciences at the IT'IS Foundation.

Located in Yerevan, Armenia, Russian-Armenian University (RAU) is a rapidly developing, multicultural and innovation-driven university, which strives to provide high-quality education and research across fields with a focus on STEM. The scientific staff conducts research at laboratories based within RAU and in cooperation with local and international science centers and universities. Director of RAU Institute of Biomedicine and Pharmacy Arsen Arakelyan, Ph.D. and Senior Researcher at RAU Department of Bioengineering, Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology Grigor Arakelov, Ph.D. are the contact points for questions and collaboration inquiries.

PSNC – Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center is affiliated to the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBCH PAS) and is an active research and development center specialized in new generation networking, media, scientific applications and visualisation, HPC/HTC solutions, clouds, digital libraries and cyber security, as well as technologies, applications and services for Information Society. PSNC is also responsible for the development and management of the national research network in Poland – PIONIER as well as for providing computational and storage resources for academia and industry on the national as well as the European level. Tomasz Piontek is the Head of Applications Division at PSNC.

F1000Research is an open-access publishing platform which offers rapid publication of research in the form of classical articles as well as other types of research outputs such as software tools, data notes, method articles, registered reports. The F1000Research open research publishing model enables publication within days of submission, followed by open invited peer review. Dr Maria Bellantone is the Publishing Director for the Physical Sciences at F1000.

Conception X is a venture builder that creates deep tech startups from the UK’s top PhD talent. The 9-month programme is designed to train current PhD candidates in technology entrepreneurship, supporting them in building ventures that leverage their proprietary research. Turning universities into incubators, the programme runs in parallel to PhD degrees, thus de-risking exciting technologies which have enormous potential to change the world for the better. It empowers students to explore entrepreneurship as an impactful career choice and test their ideas for commercial applications in industry. Conception X was launched at the UCL Faculty of Engineering in 2018 and with the support of Foundation partners, the programme is an independent non-profit, open to PhD students from all UK universities.The main contact between Conception X and CompBioMed is Riam Kanso, CEO.

LifeTec Group is an independent company performing compliance and efficacy studies of innovative healthcare products, interventions and therapies. They specialise in evaluating medical devices, performing applied biomedical research and developing enabling technology. With multi-disciplinary in-depth knowledge, state-of-the-art technology and extensive facilities LifeTec Group offers advanced solutions to the biomedical industry, clinics and academia. Our widely acknowledged expertise and R&D facilities can lead products or new technologies towards a time and cost efficient implementation. Whether you are a medical device manufacturer, healthcare professional, engineer or scientist, we can serve you in your course to medical innovation.Marco Stijnen is the Head of Medtech Innovation and the contact within CompBioMed

Institut Curie is a major player in the research and fight against cancer. It consists of a Hospital and a Research Center whose the objective is to develop basic research and to use the knowledge produced to improve the diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics of cancers as part of the continuum between basic research and innovation serving the patient. The main contact for CompBioMed is Philippe Hupé, Co-director of the Bioinformatics Platform.

Kuano provides innovative quantum and AI solutions for molecular design. The flagship offering of the company is the Nautilus platform, which combines quantum simulation and machine learning to facilitate the design of highly efficient inhibitors based on target chemistry. Kuano also provides services ranging from strategic understanding of the impact of quantum technologies to full turnkey inhibitor design projects.David Wright is the CTO of Kuano and will be the contact between them and CompBioMed

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) is a Foundation financed by the State to conduct scientific research in the public interest, for the purpose of technological development. IIT is under the supervision of the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Education, University and Research. IIT aims to promote excellence in basic and applied research and to foster the development of the national economy. The main contact point is Sauro Succi, Senior Research Executive, Principal Investigator "Mesoscale Simulations".

Founded in 2017 and based on technology developed at Harvard University, Zapata Computing is the leading enterprise software company for quantum solutions. Zapata’s software platform Orquestra offers workflows and quantum algorithms for the next generation of high-performance computing in industries such as pharmaceutical, oil & gas, finance, aerospace. Zapata works with leading Fortune 500 companies and has raised over $25m from investors such as Comcast Ventures, Prelude Ventures, Pitango Ventures, BASF Ventures, Robert Bosch Ventures, The Engine. Witold Kowalczyk is the Director of European Business Development for Zapata Computing.

Deep Learning Partnership aims to become a market leader in the drug design and personalised medicine space through the application of quantum computers to simulate molecular processes directly. We work with pharmaceutical companies to develop custom algorithms and software in order to accelerate the drug discovery process. We also work with companies to accelerate research and development in other areas such as energy, materials science and high temperature superconductivity using quantum computers. The main point of contact for CompBioMed is Peter Morgan, CEO of Deep Learning Partnership.

Warwick University is one of the leading UK university in STEM research. The Department of Statistics with approx. 45 faculty is very research-active, hosts the Centre for Research in Statistical Methodology (CRiSM) and is a founding member of the Alan Turing Institute for data science. Dr. Ritabrata Dutta works on the applications of statistical methodology in the domain of epidemiology, meteorology, population genetics, and complex biomedical processes. He has worked with Swiss National Supercomputing Centre to optimally use Approximate Bayesian Computation using High performance computing (ABCpy) and been recently funded by UK Reaserch Initiative to develop an optimal lockdown strategy for COVID-19. The contact at University of Warwick is Dr Ritabrata Dutta, Assistant Professor at the Department of Statistics

Sano is a Teaming for Excellence centre which gathers experts in AI, computational biology, HPC and human physiology simulations, working together to create technology solutions and support for the precision medicine. We also carry out our Sano PhD program with partnering universities. For more information or collaboration inquiries contact Alina Bogacz

The University of Sussex is a public research university located in Falmer, Sussex, England. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961. The University has a diverse community of nearly 20,000 students, with around one in three being EU and other overseas students, and over 1000 academics, representing over 140 different nationalities Sussex counts 5 Nobel Prize winners, 15 Fellows of the Royal Society, 10 Fellows of the British Academy, 24 fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences and a winner of the Crafoord Prize among its faculty. Prof Maziar Nekovee is Dean of Sussex Zhejiang GongShang AI institute, Director of 6G Lab , Vice President of NetWorld 2020 European Technology Platform and founder of Quantrom Technologies Ltd. He joined the University of Sussex in 2017 after 20 years leading and working in mobile technology, telecom and consumer electronics R&D (Samsung, BT and Philips). His focus is as the intersection of communication, computing and AI technologies applied to the mobile, telecommunication and Healthcare and finance sectors.

The Institute for Experimental Medical Research (IEMR) is part of the Oslo University Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Oslo. The main research aim of the institute is to identify the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms in heart failure and to discover novel treatment targets. The institute uses both clinical and basic research methods, complemented with in silico models of cardiac physiology, as they represent an alternative that overcomes ethical and technical limitations common in other experimental techniques. For more information or collaboration inquiries contact Hector Martinez-Navarro

Simula Research Laboratory is a non-profit research organization located near Oslo, Norway. The department of Computational Physiology focuses on biophysical modelling and simulation of the heart with the purpose of understanding the electrical and mechanical behaviour of the cardiac tissue both under healthy and diseased conditions. Contact point for Simula is also Hector Martinez-Navarro, he works on cardiac physiology and has research interests in (1) myocardial ischemia and (2) diastolic dysfunction

 

The University of Algarve is a Portuguese public higher-education institution established in 1979. Prof Ana-Teresa Maia is associated with the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and leads the Functional Genomics of Cancer Laboratory, focused on understanding the role of genetic variants in several aspects of breast cancer initiation and development. Prof Paulo Martel is associated with the Faculty of Sciences and Technology and heads the Biomolecular Simulation Laboratory (BSLab), working in computational molecular modelling and structural bioinformatics to study structure and function of biological macromolecules.

The In Silico Modelling Group (ISMG) at the University of Cyprus (UCY) endeavours to explore niche areas in applied mechanics, biomechanics, biology and medicine using innovative, cutting-edge in silico models. The research interests of ISMG extend across several disciplines in theoretical and applied science, more specifically in: non-linear mechanics analysis of solids and biological tissues, in numerical methods in multiphysics / multiscale problems, mathematical modelling and mathematical biology, and in high-performance computing. Prof Vasileios Vavourakis, who leads the group, is an associate professor at UCY's Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering.