A day in the life of...

Jacob Halatek leads a team that aims to obtain a mechanistic understanding of the biological processes relevant for the design, development and production of cell and gene therapies. In this article, Jacob describes what led him to this role, what motivates him, and potential future approaches to predicting molecular structure.

What do you do and what are you responsible for?

I lead the Biological Modelling Group, which is part of Platform Research. This is a new group that has been just set up. Our main objective is to obtain a mechanistic understanding of the biological processes relevant for the design, development and production of cell and gene therapies. It is a diverse group that consolidates Bioinformatics, Proteomics, Biophysics, and Quantitative Biology. One area we’re particularly interested in is Synthetic Biology combined with in silico modelling.

How long have you been with OXB?

Not very long, I joined 9 months ago. But I have been working with Platform Research for the past two years as part of my previous job.

Tell us about your career journey at OXB.

My background is in Biophysics. During my PhD and Postdoc in Munich I became absolutely fascinated by the interplay of quantitative theory and experiment and how it helps us to understand and engineer complex biological systems. I was very keen on applying these concepts and tools in the biopharmaceutical domain and looked for opportunities in the industry. I got a Postdoc position at Microsoft Research in Cambridge to work on a Synthetic Biology Platform and later became a Senior Scientist. This was also when I started working with Oxford Biomedica. Once this project was concluded I joined Oxford Biomedica as Group Lead to develop a computational platform in-house.?

What is the best part of your job?

It’s very exciting to build something new from scratch and starting a role that didn’t exist before. I also love working with so many talented and passionate people – I am learning a lot!

How would you describe the culture at Oxford Biomedica??

It is a company that has grown very rapidly over the past few years. Innovation is really at the forefront and plays a huge role. There are many new groups, projects and collaborations that explore the most recent technologies and research.

What values do you see demonstrated within your team?

It’s a fantastic team! Everyone cares about their job, is proactive and creative. Since we’re all from different academic backgrounds good communication is also key, in particular in this early phase.

What is the best career advice you have ever given/received?

Someone once told me that when looking for a new research position it’s easy to focus on the tasks and topics. But it’s the people that we interact with. Does talking to the group members inspire you?

What would be the most surprising scientific discovery imaginable?

That’s a tough one. I am wondering if the approach to predict molecular structure with AI, such as DeepMind’s Alphafold, can be extended to predict molecular interactions and explain what is happening inside our cells on a molecular level. Many groups are working on AI approaches to replace or accelerated molecular dynamics simulations more broadly. Right now, MD simulations are computationally prohibitively expensive and therefore limited in their applications. If these projects succeed in developing AI approaches that are significantly faster, this would have huge impact indeed.

Discover more about?careers at Oxford Biomedica.?

Follow our Careers page?to stay up to date with the latest career news from Oxford Biomedica.