‘Prof Dr Koeppl is an internationally renowned expert in computational synthetic biology – a highly interesting field of research that opens up new ways of investigating cell biological processes and also allows us to design completely new molecular systems,’ said Science Minister Timon Gremmels.

‘Prof Dr Koeppl's scientific work has received numerous awards, including funding from the European Research Council. He has made pioneering contributions to genetic circuits and biomolecular structures for biosensor technology, medicine and biotechnology. With the LOEWE professorship for Prof Dr Koeppl, we are also strengthening the successful Hessian Cluster of Excellence RAI – Reasonable Artificial Intelligence.’

‘Professor Heinz Koeppl is driving forward networking within and between the M+M and I+I research fields at TU Darmstadt with great energy and is contributing his expertise to a large number of joint projects that are important for the university in order to overcome previously inaccessible challenges through interdisciplinary approaches,’ says Tanja Brühl, President of TU Darmstadt.

The project combines modern AI technologies with synthetic biology in order to find new approaches in medicine and biotechnology. Genetic circuits are at the centre of the project. They control the activity of genes and thus the function of cells and organisms – and are programmable. The aim of the LOEWE top professorship is to develop AI algorithms that design functional RNA molecules for therapeutic applications and complex genetic circuits.

To this end, special high-throughput measurement methods are being developed that can be used to analyse a large number of samples for specific biochemical properties simultaneously. This generates large amounts of experimental data for training the AI models. With the help of laboratory robotics and AI, the researchers are creating a closed loop in which they can automatically generate and test biomolecules and genetic circuits for the first time.