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Stein Aerts

VIB Center for AI & Computational Biology, BE
Biography

Stein Aerts is Scientific Director of VIB.AI, the VIB Center for AI & Computational Biology. He is also VIB group leader, and professor at the KU Leuven Department of Human Genetics.

Stein has a multidisciplinary background in both bio-engineering and computer science. During his PhD he was trained in bioinformatics, and during his Postdoc he worked on the genomics of gene regulation in Drosophila. He now heads the Laboratory of Computational Biology, with a research focus on deciphering the genomic regulatory code, using a combination of single-cell, machine-learning, and high-throughput experimental approaches.

His recent scientific contributions include new bioinformatics methods for the analysis of single-cell gene regulatory networks, namely SCENIC and cisTopic; new experimental assays for single-cell ATAC-seq (HyDrop) and for massively parallel enhancer reporter assays; deep learning implementations for enhancer modelling (DeepMEL, DeepFlyBrain, DeepLiver); and methods for AI-driven design of synthetic enhancers for gene therapy.

Stein is EMBO member, obtained Consolidator and Advanced ERC grants, and has been awarded the 2017 Prize for Bioinformatics and Computational Science from the Biotech Fund and the 2016 Astrazeneca Foundation Award Bioinformatics. He co-founded the Fly Cell Atlas consortium.

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