We are a young, diverse, and interdisciplinary group of scientists. We use computational methods to extract actionable knowledge from clinical routine data. Our main tools are Artificial Intelligence and Computational Modeling. We combine these tools with a clinical perspective on health and disease. Our main area of expertise is precision oncology of solid tumors, including immunotherapy. We are global thought leaders in the area of predicting clinically actionable properties of tumors directly from routinely available histopathology slides. Our lab’s mission is to build an interdisciplinary space in which young biologists, medical doctors and computer scientists collaborate and co-develop ideas and methods for improved clinical decision making in cancer.
Current research
The amount of routinely available data in oncology is massively increasing. Currently, we are not using this data for clinical decision making. At the same time, in data science, we are witnessing an exponential increase of state-of-the-art deep learning (DL), especially self-supervised models, transformers and generative models. In just five years, these algorithms have massively pushed the boundary of what was technically feasible to completely new levels. However, as the fields of medicine and data science evolve faster and faster, they are becoming increasingly disconnected. Without structured efforts, it is hard to keep up to date in both fields.
Research aims
- Develop new AI-based methods for clinical use, actually integrate AI into clinical practice, and respect patient privacy and needs
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning are helping to identify patterns in medical data and develop personalized therapy recommendations. By using AI in clinical practice, cancer could be detected more quickly in the future, the subtype broken down and the disease treated more effectively.
- Build an interdisciplinary space where young scientists collaborate and co-develop ideas and methods for improved clinical decision making in cancer
Lab members
find overview https://jnkather.github.io/team/
Active team
Dr. Zunamys I. Carrero | Lab’s leadership team
Narmin Ghaffari Laleh, MSc | Research Scientist | Software Engineer
Oliver Lester Saldanha, MSc | Research Scientist |PhD Student
Didem Cifci, MSc | PhD Student
Hannah Sophie Muti | Physician Scientist
Chiara Löffler | Physician Scientist
Katherine Jane Hewitt, MD | PhD Student
Jan Niehues, PhD | Medical Student with a PhD in physics
Marko van Treeck, MSc | Research Software Engineer
Gregory Veldhuizen, MD, PhD | post-doctoral Physician Scientist
Xiaofeng Jiang, MD | PhD Student
Marco Gustav | Engineer and PhD Candidate
Omar el Nahhas, MSc | Computer Scientist and PhD Student
Students
Emylou Matthaei, BSc | dental student
Lars Hilgers | medical student
Tobias Seibel | physics student
Associate Lab Members
Tobias P. Seraphin | University Hospital Düsseldorf
Dr. med. Fiona Kolbinger | University Hospital Dresden
Selected publications
Check out Google Scholar or PubMed for a full list of publications. Below some recent publications are highlighted:
Saldanha OL, Quirke P, West NP, … Kather JN. Swarm learning for decentralized artificial intelligence in cancer histopathology. Nature Medicine (2022), doi: 10.1038/s41591-022-01768-5. Epub ahead of print.
Kather JN, Pearson AT, Halama N, … Luedde T. Deep learning can predict microsatellite instability directly from histology in gastrointestinal cancer, Nature Medicine (2019), doi: 10.1038/s41591-019-0462-y
Kather JN, Heij LR, Grabsch HI, … Luedde T. Pan-cancer image-based detection of clinically actionable genetic alterations, Nature Cancer (2020), doi: 10.1038/s43018-020-0087-6
Echle A, Grabsch HI, Quirke P, … Kather JN. Clinical-Grade Detection of Microsatellite Instability in Colorectal Tumors by Deep Learning, Gastroenterology (2020), doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2020.06.021
Kather JN, Calderaro J. Development of AI-based pathology biomarkers in gastrointestinal and liver cancer, Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology (2020), doi: 10.1038/s41575-020-0343-3
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