Projects

SFB TRR 422

BMBF/DFG/BMG / Running /

Project Type: Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Project Name: TRR 422: PodoSigN – Podozyten Signaltransduktion: Von den Grundlagen zum Krankheitsverständnis
Summary: This project aims to advance podocyte-specific precision medicine by systematically decoding podocyte signaling networks involved in health and disease through integrative single-cell, omics, and AI-based computational approaches. By combining large-scale clinical and molecular datasets across species and systems, we focus on data management and modeling of complex podocyte signaling pathways. The project will identify disease checkpoints and construct knowledge graphs to support targeted therapeutic strategies for chronic kidney disease.
Working Period: 2025-2029
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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DICE-CD

BMBF/DFG/BMG / EU / Running /

Project Type: Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (BMBFTR) & European Union, European Social Fund (ESF)
Project Name: Entwicklung von Daten-Ökosystemen für die klinische Praxis: Ein End-2-End Ansatz zur Transformation klinischer Prozesse und Steigerung der Datennutzungsreife (DICE-CD)
Summary: The DICE-CD project develops a transferable reference model for modern clinical data ecosystems that is independent of specific technologies. It analyzes patient-centered care pathways, reviews existing system landscapes, and supports the design of cross-domain, user-centered solutions. A maturity model enables comparability, and an ADPKD case study demonstrates the approach in clinical practice.
Working Period: 2026-2028
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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UNICA

EU / Running /

Project Type: European Union Project (EU HORIZON 2020)
Project Name: Unified Network for International Cancer Advancement (UNICA)
Summary: Project aims to increase the geographical reach of the European Cancer Imaging Initiative (EUCAIM) by facilitating the federation and secure sharing of de-identified cancer imaging and clinical data (e.g. mammograms, X-rays, CT and MRI scans, …), primarily from screening programmes and opportunistic screening for lung, breast, and prostate cancer.
Working Period: 2025-2029
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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AEQUITAS

EU / Running /

Project Type: European Union Project (CERV-2024-CHAR-LITI)
Project Name: Preparation of the CSOs and public healthcare sector to address gender and racial biases that might arise from the wide usage of AI in order to protect and promote fundamental rights (AEQUITAS)
Summary: The AEQUITAS project addresses gender and racial biases in biomedical AI that can lead to misdiagnosis, mistreatment, and violations of EU Charter rights. Its aims are to strengthen CSOs and human rights groups in educating the public and monitoring AI bias, train healthcare staff to critically assess biased AI systems, develop an AI Regulatory Model, build a European CSO–hospital network for awareness and advocacy, and promote regulation and application of the EU Charter in the AI era.
Working Period: 2025-2027
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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TA’ZIZ

BMBF/DFG/BMG /

Project Type: Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdienstes (DAAD), Ta’ziz Partnerschaft, Kurzmaßnahmen
Project Name: Federated learning and Data Lakehouse for healthcare analytics: A knowledge transfer initiative
Summary: This project aims to transfer expertise from the German PADME research team to support skill development and bridge the gap between Tunisian academic research and real-world healthcare applications. It focuses on federated learning and Data Lakehouse architectures for advanced healthcare analytics. The collaboration brings together complementary strengths from the University Hospital of Cologne and the University of Sfax to build a privacy-compliant, robust healthcare data infrastructure.
Working Period: 2025
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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ARTICYST

EU / Running /

Project Type: European Union Project (OSCARS-Open Science Clusters' Action for Research and Society)
Project Name: Devising Open Science practices to promote research and treatment in cystic kidney disease (ARTICYST)
Summary: By leveraging Open Science practices, the project aims to develop a comprehensive infrastructure for data integration and predictive modelling, supporting patient decision-making and improving therapeutic strategies.
Working Period: 2025-2027
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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CRC 1218

BMBF/DFG/BMG / Running /

Project Type: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Project Name: CRC 1218. Mitochondrial regulation of cellular function. (Third Funding Period)
Summary: Scientists from the UoK, the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne and from the University of Bonn have teamed up to study how mitochondria influence activity, differentiation and survival of the cell. The Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1218 on Mitochondrial regulation of cellular function has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) since July 2016. In June 2024, it's announced that the CRC 1218 is entering its third phase, funded by the DFG until 2028..
Working Period: 2024-2027
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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GNAO1-EU

EU / Running /

Project Type: European Union Project (European Joint Programme on Rare Diseases, EJP RD)
Project Name: GNAO1-EU: European Natural History Study and search for novel biomarkers in GNAO1-associated disorders
Summary: GNAO1-associated disorder is an ultra-rare disease with unknown prevalence, with about 150 cases reported in the literature as case reports or small studies. Its full clinical spectrum, genotype-phenotype correlations, disease course, and standard of care remain unclear. The project aims to conduct a prospective natural history study combining detailed phenotyping with longitudinal assessment in a large patient cohort, establish an international registry, and identify and validate potential biomarkers by investigating neuroinflammation and the gut microbiome.
Working Period: 2024-2027
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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RESTLESS

EU / Running /

Project Type: European Union Project (European Education and Culture Executive Agency, EACEA)
Project Name: RESTLESS: empoweRing univErsity Students Through heaLth EntrepreneurShip trainingS
Summary: The project RESTLESS aims to inspire, mentor, train and empower students and graduates, through the development and execution of a dedicated, standalone and hybrid training course focusing on the skills needed by a digitally transformed health sector. Thus, it will be necessary to identify the needs, competences and knowledge its target audience needs to develop and the top trends impacting the healthcare industry in order to design the training structure. Surveys, focus groups and desk research will record the views of the target audience on the skills and attitudes needed by a digitally transformed healthcare, as well as the career and entrepreneurial opportunities that exist in this industry.
Working Period: 2024-2026
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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RESTORE VISION

EU / Running /

Project Type: European Union Project (HORIZON-HLTH-2022-DISEASE-06-two-stage)
Project Name: RESTORE VISION: Novel advanced and repurposed therapeutics for vision restoration in a group of severe rare ocular surface diseases: from validation to first clinical investigations.
Summary: RESTORE VISION has identified seven rare eye diseases where current treatment options are inadequate – and aims to repurpose six existing drugs and develop three new compounds to tackle these conditions, with the potential to restore the cell physiology, immune, avascular, neural and signalling environment in the cornea.
Working Period: 2024-2025
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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CRC 1607

BMBF/DFG/BMG / Running /

Project Type: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Project Name: CRC, 1607. Towards immunomodulatory and anti(lymph)angiogenic therapies for age-related blinding eye diseases
Summary: Aberrant cellular immunologic pathology/inflammation and/or pathologic regulation of (lymph)angiogenesis drive clinical manifestations of a variety of age-associated eye diseases. We included experts of (lymph)angiogenesis and inflammation research as well as image analysis and artificial intelligence into our project, thereby enabling (i) transfer of external expertise to ophthalmological diseases and (ii) a better use of the eye as an easily accessible model system to unravel disease mechanisms relevant beyond ophthalmology. This will help us to reach our overarching goal: The development of new therapeutic concepts in this area of high unmet need to alleviate to individual and societal burden of age-associated vision loss.
Working Period: 2024-2027
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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BETTER

EU / Running /

Project Type: European Union Project (HORIZON-HLTH-2023-TOOL-05)
Project Name: Better rEal-world healTh-daTa distributEd analytics Research platform (BETTER)
Summary: This interdisciplinary project proposes the co-creation of 3 clinical use cases involving 7 medical centres located in the EU and beyond, where sensitive patient data, including genomics, are made available and analysed in a GDPR-compliant mechanism via a Distributed Analytics (DA) paradigm called the Personal Health Train (PHT).
Working Period: 2024-2028
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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BullNet

EU / Running /

Project Type: European Union Project (HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions)
Project Name: A cutting edge integrated approach to sperm biology and associated reproductive biotechnologies to assist the dairy and beef industries meet growing societal, environmental and economic demands (BullNet)
Summary: The project will build a multi-disciplinary and inter-sectorial research programme designed to unravel the complex underlying biology of compromised fertility of individual bulls. Cutting-edge basic, applied and machine-learning approaches will be used to deliver a robust, flexible semen product from young, appropriately reared and managed, first-season elite sires that can be used successfully for artificial insemination (AI) with predictable and consistent fertility, so as to provide the industry with key tools to meet current emissions and animal welfare demands.
Working Period: 2024-2028
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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Personalized Medicine for Oncology (PM4Onco)

BMBF/DFG/BMG / Running /

Project Type: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
Project Name: Personalized Medicine for Oncology Use (PM4Onco)
Summary: PM4Onco will establish a national, interoperable infrastructure for molecular tumor boards that streamlines the harmonization of the existing approaches and continues the efforts from the establishment phase of the MII.
Working Period: 2023-2027
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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Open Medical Inference (OMI) – Method Platform

BMBF/DFG/BMG / Running /

Project Type: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
Project Name: Open Medical Inference (OMI) - Method Platform
Summary: OMI will specify open protocols and data formats for the semantically interoperable peer-to-peer exchange of multimodal healthcare data and remote AI inference and produce infrastructure components that implement the OMI protocol.
Working Period: 2023-2027
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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Privacy-Preserving Analytics in Medicine (PrivateAIM)

BMBF/DFG/BMG / Running /

Project Type: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
Project Name: Privacy-Preserving Analytics in Medicine (PrivateAIM)
Summary: The project focuses on new methodological developments in federated learning and data privacy. To implement these new approaches, a unified platform will be developed.
Working Period: 2023-2028
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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Smart Health Innovation & Future Technologies Hub (Shift-HUB)

EU / Running /

Project Type: European Union Project (HORIZON-HLTH-2022-IND-13)
Project Name: Smart Health Innovation & Future Technologies Hub (Shift-HUB)
Summary: SHIFT-HUB aims to establish a pan-European Smart Health Innovation Hub bringing together a rich network of multidisciplinary stakeholders across the dimensions of the quadruple helix, with the mission to facilitate the development, ensure the promotion and foster the uptake of Smart Health technologies and services.
Working Period: 2023-2025
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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Collaborative Data Exchange and Usage (CODEX+)

BMBF/DFG/BMG /

Project Type: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
Project Name: Collaborative Data Exchange and Usage (CODEX+)
Summary: CODEX+ adds technical and organizational aspects to the CODEX platform from the first funding phase, which has now been transferred to the NUM Routine Data Platform infrastructure, so that the successful solutions from the various NUM projects can be operated and used in a common infrastructure at the university hospitals.
Working Period: 2022
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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FAIR Data Spaces

BMBF/DFG/BMG /

Project Type: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
Project Name: FAIR Data Spaces
Summary: In dem Projekt werden die föderierte, sichere Dateninfrastruktur Gaia-X und NFDI zu einem gemeinsamen, cloud-basierten Datenraum für Industrie und Forschung unter Einhaltung der FAIR-Prinzipien verbunden.
Working Period: 2021-2024
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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NFDI for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (NFDI4DS)

BMBF/DFG/BMG / Running /

Project Type: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
Project Name: Nationale Forschungsdateninfrastruktur (NFDI) for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence
Summary: NFDI4DS verfolgt die Entwicklung, Einrichtung und Aufrechterhaltung einer nationalen Forschungsdateninfrastruktur für die Communitys in Data Science und der Künstlichen Intelligenz in Deutschland.
Working Period: 2022-2026
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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NFDI for Personal Health Data (NFDI4Health)

BMBF/DFG/BMG / Running /

Project Type: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
Project Name: Nationale Forschungsdateninfrastruktur für personenbezogene Gesundheitsdaten (NFDI4Health)
Summary: The project aim to implement a federated health data infrastructure to foster data sharing and cooperation between clinical research, epidemiological and public health communities in Germany.
Working Period: 2022-2025
Position: Principal Investigator. University of Cologne

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Diagnosis Support for the Rare Disease Family Leukodystrophy(LEUKO Expert)

BMBF/DFG/BMG /

Project Type: Bundesministerium für Gesundheit (BMG)
Project Name: KI-basierte Diagnoseunterstützung bei Seltenen Erkrankungen am Beispiel der Seltenen Erkrankung Leukodystrophie
Summary: The main aim of the project is to develop machine learning models for the family of leukodystrophies that can be used in a diagnostic support system. Models will be built using clinical, genetic and image data (MRI) from three centers for rare diseases.
Working Period: 2020-2021
Position: Principal Investigator. RWTH Aachen

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Collaboration On Rare Diseases (CORD_MI)

BMBF/DFG/BMG /

Project Type: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
Project Name: Collaboration On Rare Diseases (CORD_MI)
Summary: The "Collaboration on Rare Diseases" use case is a joint project comprising the four consortia of the Medical Informatics Initiative, in which numerous German university hospitals and partner institutions are involved. The aim is to improve care and research in the field of rare diseases.
Working Period: 2020-2022
Position: Principal Investigator. RWTH Aachen

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Polypharmazie, Arzneimittelwechselwirkungen, Risiken (POLAR_MI)

BMBF/DFG/BMG /

Project Type: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
Project Name: Polypharmazie, Arzneimittelwechselwirkungen, Risiken (POLAR_MI)
Summary: The "POLypharmazie, Arzneimittelwechselwirkungen, Risiken" use case encompasses all four consortia of the Medical Informatics Initiative and aims to contribute to the detection of health risks in patients with polymedication.
Working Period: 2020-2022
Position: Principal Investigator. RWTH Aachen

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FAIRplus Project

EU /

Project Type: H2020 (EU.3.1.7. - Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 (IMI2))
Project Name: FAIRplus
Summary: The FAIRplus project aims to develop tools and guidelines for making life science data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). The project has 22 partners from academia and industry, and runs from January 2019 to June 2022.
Working Period: 2019-2022
Position: Researcher. Fraunhofer FIT.

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Smart Medical Information Technology for Healthcare (SMITH)

BMBF/DFG/BMG /

Project Type: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)
Project Name: SMITH Smart Medical Information Technology for Healthcare
Summary: The aim within the scope of SMITH is the development of an innovative structure for cross-institutional connectivity and exchange of healthcare and research data between sites and beyond the consortium.
Working Period: 2017-2022
Position: Researcher. RWTH Aachen

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The PICASO Project

EU /

Project Type: H2020 (EU.3.1.6. - Health care provision and integrated care)
Project Name: A Personalised Integrated Care Approach for Service Organisations and Care Models for Patients with Multi-Morbidity and Chronic Conditions (PICASO)
Summary: The PICASO project is developing an ICT platform to support coordination of care plans for people diagnosedwith co-occurring chronic diseases.
Working Period: 2017-2018
Position: Researcher. Fraunhofer FIT

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POLYCARE Project

EU /

Project Type: H2020 (EU.3.1.6. - Health care provision and integrated care)
Project Name: POLY-stakeholders for integrated CARE for chronic patients in acute phases (POLYCARE)
Summary: POLYCARE project aims to develop and test an integrated care model, patient-centred, supported by the use of advanced ICT systems and services that allows the monitoring and care of older chronic patients in acute phases at home.
Working Period: 2017-2018
Position: Researcher. Fraunhofer FIT

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MARIO Project

EU /

Project Type: H2020 (EU.3.1. - SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Health, demographic change and well-being)
Project Name: Managing active and healthy aging with use of caring service robots (MARIO)
Summary: MARIO addresses the difficult challenges of loneliness, isolation and dementia in older persons through innovative and multi-faceted inventions delivered by service robots.
Working Period: 2015-2016
Position: Member of the coordination team, acquired funding as co-producer. Insight, NUI Galway.

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Irish Record Linkage 1864-1913

Others /

Project Type: Irish Research Council (IRC)
Project Name: Irish Record Linkage 1864-1913
Summary: The project aims to provide a comprehensive map of infant and maternal mortality for Dublin from 1864-1913 by linking records of Birth, Marriage and Death, provided by the General Register Office.
Working Period: 2014-2015
Position: Ontology Engineer. Insight, NUI, Galway.

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SIFEM Project

EU /

Project Type: FP7 (ICT - Specific Programme "Cooperation": Information and communication technologies)
Project Name: Semantic Infostructure interlinking an open source Finite Element tool and libraries with a model repository for the multi-scale Modelling and 3d visualization of the inner-ear (SIFEM)
Summary: The aim of project is to develop a semantic infostructure and supportive tools with the clinical knowledge, the available clinical and experimental data and a model repository in order to obtain multi-scale models of the inner-ear.
Working Period: 2014-2015
Position: Researcher. Insight, NUI, Galway

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Linked2Safety

EU /

Project Type: FP7 (ICT - Specific Programme "Cooperation": Information and communication technologies)
Project Name: A Next-Generation, Secure Linked Data Medical Information Space For Semantically-Interconnecting Electronic Health Records and Clinical Trials Systems Advancing Patients Safety In Clinical Research (Linked2Safety)
Summary: The vision of Linked2Safety project is to advance clinical practice and accelerate medical research with an innovative semantic interoperability framework.
Working Period: 2011-2014
Position: Researcher. DERI, NUI Galway.

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USST, Phase I

Others /

Project Type: EU-State Institute of Statistics (SIS) of the Republic of Turkey
Project Name: Upgrading the Statistical System of Turkey Programme (USST) Phase I, Technical Assistance to Improve the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) system in the State Institute of Statistics (SIS) of the Republic of Turkey
Summary: -
Working Period: 2005-2006
Position: Expert (data warehousing and data mining) (METEKSAN System)

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URBAS: National Radiology and PACS Development Project

Core Resources Management System (CRMS)

Others /

Project Type: The World Bank, Ministry of Health (Türkiye)
Project Name: Core Resources Management System (CRMS)
Summary: CRMS is an online registration system which indicates the staff status of the Ministry of Health across the country. CRMS project was begun to be formed within the framework of the World Bank's Second Health Project.
Working Period: 1998-2000
Position: Software Quality Manager (LIKOM Software)

Click here for details (in Turkish)