ICREA Research Professor, ERC Consolidator Grant
Born in Barcelona in 1972. He obtained his BSc in Biochemistry (1996), MSc in Biotechnology (1998) and PhD in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (2000) from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He then joined the Structural Bioinformatics Group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (2001) where he did his postdoctoral training and became Staff Scientist (2003).
Since April 2006, Patrick Aloy is an ICREA Research Professor and Principal Investigator of the Structural Bioinformatics Lab in the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona).
AI has the potential to transform drug discovery, as it is reshaping other areas of science and technology. However, to embrace AI and enable a systemic vision of pharmacology, we need to blend biology and chemistry in a format that is amenable for modern machine learning. Accordingly, in the Aloy group, we have been developing resources to process, harmonize and integrate bioactivity data on small molecules as well as context-dependent biological descriptors that capture most of the biomedical knowledge available in the public domain. We are currently matching biological (disease) signatures with small molecule bioactivity profiles, so that we can identify chemical compounds able to revert the cellular effects of any given perturbation. We are also implementing generative AI technologies so that we can design new compounds that match a specific molecular profile which, if successful, could finally boost the transition from precision to personalized medicine.