We are pleased to welcome Professor Jonathan Wareham from ESADE Business & Law Schools to Freie Universität Berlin. He will give a talk on “AI and Open Science: The Case of EMBL-EBI and AlphaFold”.

When: June 3rd, 2025 | 12:00 – 14:00 CEST

Where: Hörsaal A, Main Building (HBF), Freie Universität Berlin
Online participation available:
Join via Webex

One of the most successful beacons of AI in science is AlphaFold, which led two researchers to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024. Developed by Google DeepMind and EMBL-EBI, AlphaFold is a neural network system designed to predict protein structures—a long-standing challenge in biology and pharmacology.

The case demonstrates the significance of open and collaborative science. AlphaFold was trained on open public data, and its predictions were made available through an open-access database. Public-private collaboration played a critical role not in generating the data, but in curating and structuring it for scientific and industrial use. Computational biologists and AI experts from DeepMind and EMBL-EBI worked closely and iteratively to create this innovation.

Jonathan will present on the importance of building an innovation ecosystem, drawing from his work with CERN and EMBL.

Bio

Professor Jonathan Wareham is a leading scholar in Information Systems at ESADE Business & Law Schools, where he has held several key leadership positions. He founded the ESADE Institute for Innovation and Knowledge Management and has published in top journals such as MIS Quarterly and Organization Science.

His research centers on deep tech, scientific computing, and science policy, especially in the life sciences and energy sectors. He also advises social entrepreneurs and participates in EU-funded innovation projects like ATTRACT and ScienceMesh.