Mit der Etablierung des Instituts für Computational Life Sciences (entstanden aus dem Institut für Angewandte Simulation) und neuen Studienangeboten hat die ZHAW zukunftsweisende Zeichen gesetzt. Gemeinsam mit unseren Partnern aus der Forschung, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft haben wir am 1. Computational Life Sciences Day unter dem Motto "Computational Life Sciences Perspectives" den Blick nach vorne gerichtet. Zusammen haben wir folgende Fragen beantwortet: Wo stehen wir? Wo geht die Reise hin? Wo liegen die Potentiale?

Wir danken allen Teilnehmenden! Der gegenseitige Austausch war grossartig. Neue Perspektiven entstehen, wenn sie gemeinsam geschaffen werden.

ICLS: Prof. Dr. Thomas Ott, Director of Institute ICLS from 01.01.2023
Abstract: The Institute of Computational Life Sciences at ZHAW is a player in a vibrant and exciting field. The four pillars (research centres) "Bioinformatics", "Cognitive Computing", "Digital Health", "Digital Labs and Production" form the basis for our current and future commitment to research and development at a high level and for the success of our study programmes. In this short presentation, I will venture an outlook on the opportunities and challenges we as an institute will face in the coming years together with our partners from science, business, and society. 

ICLS: Dr. Lukas Hollenstein, Co-Head of the Research Center Digital Labs & Production
Industry Partner: Daniel Fejzo, Engineering Project Lead, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd Global Operations
Abstract: "Textbook examples" of Digital Twins, their interaction with the production line, often omit the early development stages with many uncertainties, many unanswered questions, and decisions to take. We discuss the process of building up a simulation model of an automated production line as a base for its development and iteration cycles as well as important lessons learned along the way.

ICLS: Dr. Samuel Wehrli, Research Group Biosensor Analysis and Digital Health
Industry Partner:  Universitätsspital Basel, Leitwert
Abstract: The digitalization of health care allows to gather and process data at unprecedented scale. Patient care and empowerment can be enhanced by quantitative methods in medicine. We will showcase how health data can be harvested and put to good use via the usage of patient-friendly wearable devices. 

ICLS: Dr. Ivo Kaelin, Head of Studies
Abstract: From the autumn semester of 2022, the ICLS will not only be responsible for the Master's specialisation in Applied Computational Life Sciences (ACLS), but also for the new Bachelor's programme in Applied Digital Life Sciences (ADLS). The educational concept of this study programme is practice-oriented and offers a lot of freedom for the individual design of the curriculum. It focuses on three specialisations: "Digital Health", "Digital Labs and Production" and "Digital Environment" in close cooperation with industry.

Speakers: Kevin Mohammad Yar, Leonie Grossmann, Adrian Rutzer
Abstract: In short "Flash Talks", current Master's students from the ACLS programme present the projects they are working on as part of their Master's thesis, in collaboration with research groups at the ZHAW or in industry.

Speakers: Lukas Schaub (Peleven AG), Anna Wróbel (ZHAW / UZH), Thomas Wegmann (PreComb Therapeutics AG)
Abstract: Graduates of the ACLS Master's programme present the areas in which they are working today, as well as their experiences and perspectives.

ICLS: Dr. Ahmad Aghaebrahimian, Research Associate, Research Center Bioinformatics
Industry Partner: Dr. Sebastian Dümcke (Clemedi)
Abstract: The rapid expansion of publication production in the life sciences makes it a challenge for researchers to keep up with new findings and studies across the globe. PubMed alone houses more than 34 million articles from over 5000 journals. These articles contain billions of explicit facts such as "Raynaud's syndrome->associated with->platelet aggregability" or "Dietary fish oil->reduces->platelet aggregability". Yet, these facts are scattered across disjoined articles making it hard to infer the resulting implicit hypothesis "Dietary fish oil->?->Raynaud's syndrome". Literature-based discovery (LBD) aims at generating implicit hypotheses via associating seemingly unrelated facts from the graph of disjoint publications. Aiming at facilitating automatic LBD, we do R&D on the latest advances in Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Semantic Web technologies for populating a Knowledge Graph given the entire PubMed.

ICLS: Session Chair: Dr. Claus Horn, Head of the Research Group Autonomous Systems and Reinforcement Learning
Industry Partner: Patrick Albrecht, Julian Amaker (Fruitful Farming AG), Benjamin Russell, Antonio Fortin, Nicolas Imstepf (Kikodo Education Technologies Sàrl)
Abstract: Life Sciences are full of temporal processes with huge optimization potential, for which the emerging field of applied Reinforcement Learning – the third learning paradigm of Machine Learning -  offers a powerful new approach. We will showcase this approach with some use cases from our current research activity.

ICLS: Prof. Marcel Burkhard, Director of Institute ICLS
Abstract: In my closing remarks, I would like to point out the factors for success and failure in the development of the ICLS Institute for Computational Life Sciences. Using the brief review of 30 years of project experience in the digital life sciences as an example, I would like to point out a few principles for successful digitalization projects in the Life Sciences. At the end I risk an outlook: What are the preconditions for future, successful and great digitization projects in the Life Sciences? What is the USP of the ICLS and how do perspectives arise?