New DDLS Fellow: Patrick Bryant
Get to know our latest SciLifeLab & Wallenberg National Program for Data-Driven Life Science (DDLS) Fellow, Patrick Bryant (Stockholm University), in this week’s Q&A-style article. Patrick will be joining the DDLS Cell and molecular biology research area.
Patrick studied medical biotechnology at KTH and worked as an industrial chemist and with cancer genetics at KI afterwards. He did his PhD at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Stockholm University and continued as a postdoc at FU Berlin in Deep Learning.
How do you think your expertise can contribute to the program?
My mixed background allows me to consolidate different types of data and technologies. My specialty is working with very large datasets and AI models which are becoming more frequent in life sciences.
Shortly describe your research in an easy-to-understand way.
My research tries to answer questions about the evolution of proteins and how this information can be used to create a new range of AI tools. The tools I have developed make it possible to predict the structure of proteins and their interaction partners, and to design new molecules that bind to proteins. I am now extending and applying these tools to help find potential cures to diseases and improve diagnostics. The prediction of alternative protein conformations, DNA-binding proteins, and cancer-specific peptides are a few examples.
How do you think the program and interactions with the other DDLS-Fellows will benefit you?
The possibility to collaborate and interact with like-minded scientists is essential for my projects. I go after big problems that require a very diverse skill set which is difficult for a single person to obtain. DDLS makes these problems possible to tackle by providing a wide range of resources and expertise to enable the development of new types of technology.
Name one thing that people generally do not know about you.
I like to cook.
Where do you see yourself in five years regarding the DDLS aspect?
I hope to be able to guide the next generation of DDLS-Fellows and share the insights from my experience within the program – as well as my technology.
In one word, describe how you feel about becoming a DDLS-Fellow.
Great.
