Institute of Computational Life Sciences

Why do algorithms improve our quality of life?
"Industry focused, creative, passionate and reflective; we think beyond institutional boundaries."
The Institute of Computational Life Sciences (ICLS) performs research and teaches in interdisciplinary fields where digitalisation intersects with the life sciences, addressing complex problems and developing new solutions in the key areas of health, society, the environment and nutrition.
We see our team of 59 employees with extensive experience in a range of interdisciplinary projects as a bridge between basic university research and practical applications in business and society.
Our research and development projects fully consider the context of our business and research partners, focusing on the fields of computational health, bioinformatics, cognitive computing for the life sciences, digital labs and production. Valuable knowledge from these projects is then directly integrated into our teaching activities, further benefiting our students.
The Institute of Computational Life Sciences at a glance
4 Research Centres
2 Study Programmes
The ICLS continuing education offer
Bachelor of Science in Applied Digital Life Sciences
The Bachelor's programme Applied Digital Life Sciences is characterised by the application-oriented training in the field of data science and computation as well as by its foundation in the life sciences with the fields of biology, environment, biotechnology, chemistry, food technology and health. The practice-oriented education concept with the specialisations "Digital Labs and Production", "Digital Environment" and "Digital Health" offers a lot of freedom for the individual design of the study programme.
Master of Science in Life Sciences – Applied Computational Life Sciences
Digitalisation is changing all areas of life and work at an increasing pace. The disciplines of the life sciences are strongly affected by this. Particularly at the interfaces of biology/biotechnology, chemistry and medicine, ever larger amounts of data are being generated and need to be processed. More and more research questions are being addressed in silico. Digital technologies and computer-aided methods complement the established methods of the life sciences in vitro and in vivo. In this Master's programme, you will acquire expertise in dealing with digital tools and large amounts of data. The programme will prepare you with relevant skills for the digital future.
Continuing Education and Conferences
The Institute of Computational Life Sciences offers a wide range of continuing education courses, which you can also individually extend and combine to a CAS in Digital Life Sciences. The annual conferences also offer interesting platforms not only for keeping up to date, but also for exchanging ideas and networking.
Research and Development
In the four research centres Bioinformatics, Cognitive Computing, Computational Health, Digital Labs and Production, we offer application-oriented research, development and services on issues concerning digitalisation and data science in the life sciences. The aim of our research and development activities is to develop innovative solutions in the field of data science and computation for the life sciences.
Organisation and People
The Institute is divided into four centres of expertise with 14 research groups; these work closely together in an interdisciplinary manner and achieve project goals professionally and efficiently.

«We develop practical solutions at the interface of biology, medicine and computational sciences.»
Prof. Dr. Maria Anisimova
Head of the centre
The Centre for Bioinformatics focuses on the theoretical and computational aspects of modelling the molecular biology processes, genome evolution and adaptive change, as well as biomedical data representation and integration. The goal is to bring basic research and new bioinformatics methods to real-world applications, ranging, for example, from biotechnology and forensics to biomedical research and environmental applications. The research area is represented by the several research groups, each focusing on certain methods or application domains.

«With Cognitive Computing, we offer new solutions for the life sciences that are based on the fundamental understanding of man and machine as a learning system.»
Dr. Yulia Sandamirskaya
Head of the centre
The Centre for Cognitive Computing for Life Sciences deals with the development and use of computational methods and models for the field of life sciences, whose properties are inspired by the learning and adaptive abilities as well as self-organisation principles of natural systems. The solutions developed support demanding human activities and decision-making processes or can be used for process automation. The following general aspects are central to our research and development: learning ability/adaptability of the systems, context-bound solutions (application context in the life sciences), systemic consideration of the application and the context.

«The devision of Computational Health is specialised in the confluence of data-driven and mechanistic modelling approaches in medicine and biology.»
Prof. Dr. Sven Hirsch
Head of the centre
The centre Computational Health addresses fundamental questions in biology and medicine using computer-assisted, data-driven methods. Important tools are machine learning for image and signal analysis, parameter estimation for differential equation systems and multiphysics simulation. Effective validation strategies are used to deal with the unknown.
Our research groups
Biomedical Simulation
Medical Image Analysis & Data Modelling
Biosensor Analysis & Digital Health

«The research group Digital Labs & Production connects people, spaces and processes in the life sciences. From mixed-reality digital twins via progressive web applications to machine-to-machine interfaces, we connect physical and digital worlds through data and analytics.»
Dr. Robert Vorburger
Head of the centre
The centre combines specific methodological and technological expertise in the digitization and virtualization of laboratories, processes and production facilities in the life sciences. This includes, on the one hand, the networking of devices, processes and people using interfaces, data pipelines and data management and, on the other hand, the mapping of physical systems and infrastructures to models and simulation environments. Digital twins are a good example of how these topics interact.
Our research groups
Simulation & Optimization
Data Management & Visualization
Edge Computing & Interfaces
Advice and training
We support you in questions of experimental planning and design. Our statistics consultancy supports ZHAW researchers in all ZHAW departments and is also available to external companies and organisations. On your behalf, we work on your questions about statistics, data analysis, simulation and optimisation, as well as topics relating to knowledge management. We implement database applications for you and link them to web and smartphone applications. Expert systems and self-learning, bio-inspired algorithms are used, among other things, to make information accessible quickly and in a solution-oriented manner.
We train you on topics related to statistics, modelling, simulation and optimisation.