This press release was published by the Leipzig University magazine on November 6, 2025 and translated for the ScaDS.AI website. Find the original text in German here.

On October 1, 2025, the Interdisciplinary Data Science Center ScaDS.AI Leipzig (DSC) was established as a Central Institution at Leipzig University. This includes, among other things, the Leipzig branch of the national artificial intelligence competence center ScaDS.AI Dresden/Leipzig, which is jointly supported by Leipzig University and Dresden University of Technology. ScaDS.AI Dresden/Leipzig was previously affiliated with the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, operating first as the ScaDS Big Data Center from its founding in 2014 and, since 2019, as the AI Center ScaDS.AI Dresden/Leipzig.

The management team at the Data Science Center ScaDS.AI Leipzig

The DSC – and ScaDS.AI Dresden/Leipzig at the Leipzig site – will be led for the next four years by Professor Gerik Scheuermann as Managing Director and Professor Jens Meiler as Scientific Director. In doing so, they continue the work of Professor Erhard Rahm, who co-founded ScaDS.AI Dresden/Leipzig and has successfully developed and headed it since its inception.

As Managing Director, Professor Scheuermann will lead ScaDS.AI Dresden/Leipzig at the organisational and financial level, in addition to his professorship in image and signal processing at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science. Alongside his role as Humboldt Professor and Head of the Institute for Drug Discovery, Professor Jens Meiler will shape the scientific focus and direction of ScaDS.AI Dresden/Leipzig as Scientific Director. Together, they will represent the centre both internally and externally.

The board of the newly founded DSC also includes Professor Carsten Lutz and Professor Peter Stadler, alongside the two directors. The position of ScaDS.AI manager in Leipzig remains with Dr Eric Peukert, who has co-led the centre together with Professor Rahm since 2014.

The founding of the Data Science Center and the introduction of the directors, board members and manager were announced during a ceremony on 27 October in the Living Lab of ScaDS.AI Leipzig, attended by Rector Professor Eva Inés Obergfell and the Vice-Rector for Excellence Development: Research and Transfer, Professor Jens-Karl Eilers.

Future development and objectives of the DSC

In line with the AI strategy of the Federal Republic of Germany, the interdisciplinary Data Science Center ScaDS.AI Leipzig is committed to “developing AI for the benefit of humanity, aligning its use with European values, and harnessing the innovative potential of AI for the economy”. As a Central Institution, the DSC will contribute to shaping the research profile of Leipzig University across all faculties and will be open to researchers from all faculties and Central Institutions. In addition to basic and applied research in data science, big data and artificial intelligence, the DSC aims to transfer its research findings to science, industry and society. By creating new professorships and promoting diversity while at the same time focusing and restructuring the research fields, Professor Scheuermann and Professor Meiler will contribute to strengthening the centre’s profile and increasing its excellence.

Professor Gerik Scheuermann

Professor Gerik Scheuermann studied mathematics with a minor in computer science at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, graduating in 1995. He received his doctorate in computer science from the same university in 1999 and spent a year at Arizona State University, US, as a visiting scholar. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Davis. In 2001, he was appointed university lecturer by the Department of Computer Science at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern.

After declining offers of C3 professorships at the Universities of Freiburg and Jena, he became C4 Professor of Image and Signal Processing at Leipzig University in 2004. Professor Scheuermann is an internationally recognised researcher in the field of visualisation and visual data science. His 300 peer-reviewed publications focus on topological and feature-oriented methods for extracting information from large, heterogeneous data sets and visualising them. His applications span a wide range, from engineering, natural and life sciences, to digital humanities.

Professor Jens Meiler

Professor Jens Meiler studied chemistry at Leipzig University and completed his doctorate at Goethe University Frankfurt under Christian Griesinger. From 2001, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he was part of David Baker’s group developing the protein modelling software Rosetta, awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024. In 2005, he was appointed to Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

His research combines computational and experimental approaches to better understand proteins and their interactions with active substances and other biomolecules. Professor Meiler develops computational methods for membrane-protein structure determination, computer-aided drug discovery and the design of new protein therapeutics. He has published more than 400 manuscripts in these areas. In early 2020, he became Director of the newly founded Institute for Drug Discovery at Leipzig University with a Humboldt Professorship.