PhD student Hanna Roetschke and her collaborator, medical student Julia Stachowiak, will receive funding and mentorship to develop their AI-based technology for early disease detection, with a focus on disorders affecting the nervous and immune system.

The AI Founder Fellowship

The AI Founder Fellowship Program from MISSION KI offers an opportunity for 10 doctoral candidates in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform their research into viable startup ventures in parallel with their doctoral studies for a period of nine months.

Hanna and Julia's project

The pair have secured approximately €70,000 in funding towards their AI-driven startup, decyte, to develop a technology with the aim to enable the early diagnosis of neuro-immune conditions. The fellowship will also provide support with business development, tailored coaching and funding for computational infrastructure and data acquisition, among others.

With Julia’s medical background and Hanna’s expertise in computational biology and machine learning, they hope to bridge the gap between clinical expertise and data science. Using AI, they hope to improve how the vast amounts of medical data generated in hospitals and research facilities are utilised for early detection of diseases affecting the nervous and immune systems. Looking ahead, Hanna and Julia plan to develop their predictive diagnostic tool to be capable of detecting diseases at an early stage.

Hanna is currently in her third year of the Neuro-Immune Interactions in Health & Disease (NIIHD) Wellcome Trust PhD Programme, and is a visiting PhD student in the Crick's Molecular Immunology Laboratory. 

Exposure to interdisciplinary approaches through the NIIHD Wellcome Trust PhD Programme played a key role in inspiring us to launch a startup in this field. We are also grateful to our mentor, Professor Alexander Ecker, Professor of Data Science at the University of Göttingen, for his guidance that continues to shape our journey.

 Hanna Roetschke

We spent a couple of months developing different startup ideas and talking to clinicians to also understand their needs. During that process we realised the massive potential of using medical data to gain insights that are not possible with the existing clinical practice. I believe that with decyte we will directly address this potential and make a real difference in clinics, and the AI Founder Fellowship is a fantastic first step in that direction.

Julia Stachowiak

Read more about Hanna and Julia's fellowship.

Photo credit and copyright: MISSION KI.