31.01.2025

Continuation of the work in Halle (Saale)

This working group will be merged into the Chair of Data Analytics and Bioinformatics in Halle.

Our group’s final project meeting on “Computational Systems Biology of Infections and Antimicrobial-Resistant Pathogens” at the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) brought together students and researchers from Tübingen, Leipzig, Gießen, and Heidelberg in Halle (Saale).

Prof. Dr. Andreas Dräger (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg) opened the event, officially launching the final meeting of the Deutsches Zentrum für Infektionsforschung (DZIF)-funded project. A highlight of the conference was the keynote lecture by Prof. Dr. Ralf Steuer (Universität Leipzig), who explained the concepts of resource-balance calculations in metabolic networks.

Student presentations covered a range of topics. Arthur Neumann (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen) introduced SBSCL, a Java™ implementation of various simulation algorithms for SBML. Dóra Viktória Molnár (University of Tübingen) presented the machine-learning method TFpredict, which identifies proteins with transcription factor activity in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes, together with Michael Gaas, who further explained the latest developments in TFpredict.

Additional presentations showcased our software tools ModelPolisher, refineGEMs, SPECIMEN, and NCMW (Dr. Reinahen Mostolizadeh), emphasizing their role in computationally modeling the microbiota of the respiratory tract, mainly focusing on ESKAPE pathogens. Dr. Nantia Leonidou (DKFZ Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum) discussed metabolic models of the dangerous pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii. Dario Eltzner and Bahaa Ziadah (University of Tübingen) provided insights into the latest advancements in the model annotation tool ModelPolisher.

Gwendolyn O. Döbel, Carolin Brune, and Nina Roßbach (MLU) presented new methods for automatically generating high-quality genome-scale metabolic models.

With the conclusion of our DZIF-funded project, our affiliation with the University of Tübingen also officially ends. It was a special moment to bring together current and former group members, students, and invited researchers at the University of Halle to celebrate the successful completion of this project.

This working group is thus being merged into the Chair of Data Analytics and Bioinformatics in Halle, where numerous new tasks are on the agenda in addition to previous challenges. Further information on the new Chair of Data Analytics and Bioinformatics can be found here.