Our research addresses (global) public health challenges, aiming to reduce the Burden of Disease (BoD) by prevention, with a focus on social determinants of health, health communication, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), viral infections and rare neurogenetic conditions. Building on lessons from COVID-19—especially around behavior, ethics, and communication—we aim to take a holistic, prevention-focused approach to our work.
At the Chair for Digital Global Public Health, we:
- Promote precision public health as a framework for decision-making, predictive analytics, and risk assessment
- Develop and evaluate digital health interventions, emphasizing evidence-based communication and positive psychology
- Explore ethical aspects in the use of AI for digital public health
- Apply advanced methodologies, including federated analysis, predictive modelling, and natural language processing (NLP), to support our research
- Validate computational findings through experimental wet-lab studies
Apart from researchers at HPI, we collaborate with the Mount Sinai Healthsystem through the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health, Mount Sinai (HPI-MS), Data4Life (D4L), the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) Network (A program of The Task Force for Global Health), Emory University, the University of Cape Town, University of the Witwatersrand, Free University, Charité, Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development, University of Leipzig, GESIS and various other scientific institutions.
(Projects are listed alphabetically by the lead’s surname)
Neurogenetic Health Data Lab
People
- Lab lead: Esther-Maria Antao
- Researchers: Aadil Rasheed, Akhyar Ahmed, Jonas Ebner
Collaborators
- Reymundo Lozano, Andrew Deonarine, Girish Nadkarni, Patricia Kovatch (Mount Sinai Health System)
Aims
- Apply AI and advanced analytics to enhance our understanding of fragile-X-associated conditions
- Leverage large-scale datasets to refine phenotyping, enable early detection of potentially undiagnosed cases, and support interventions that improve communication and prevent and reduce adverse outcomes
Activities
- Retrospectively analyze large-scale datasets to identify and study relevant patient cohorts
- Validate datasets to ensure accuracy and reliability for research purposes
- Apply NLP to extract insights from clinical notes
Digital Story Lab
People
- Lab lead: Irina-Catrinel Craciun
- Researchers: Gesine Schrade, Gregor Lederer, Mostafa Elgayar, Niklas Kämmerer, Sophia Seidel, Zubair Hossain, Aksoy Tarik, Sharmy Ann James
Collaborators
- Sampson Kofi Adotey, CHAMPS Health
- Heidi Larson, Vaccine Confidence Project
- Melissa Densmore (UCT, South Africa)
- Behavior Change Center (UCL, UK)
- Ingela Marklinder (Uppsala University, Sweden)
Aims
- Use digital technology to develop digital storytelling interventions that improve health communication in a global context
- Create and be part of global networks of digital storytellers for health promotion
- Develop a framework for designing effective digital stories for health promotion
Activities
- Develop and test digital stories for health promotion
- Develop a tool to design digital stories for health promotion: the StoryHelper
- Set up collaborations with digital storytellers for health across the globe
- Build a platform for sharing digital global health stories
- Conduct workshops for digital storytelling for health
Digital Storytelling from Science to Society workshop
Storying behavior change: Designing Digital Stories for Global Health
Virus-Host Interplay Lab
People
- Lab lead: Eberhard Hildt
- Researchers: Aadil Rasheed, David Wuttke, Esther-Maria Antao, Jonas Ebner, Nora Wild, Pavel V. Kolesnichenko, Raihanul Sourav
Collaborators
The virus-host interaction laboratory is closely affiliated with the research group of Eberhard Hildt at the Paul Ehrlich Institute in Langen. This enables direct interaction between computer science-based modelling and wet-lab-based experimental investigation. This close collaboration offers a unique opportunity to generate data for modelling and to verify the generated models experimentally.
- Sabine Werner ETH Zurich, Swiss, Kinome analysis of antivirals
- Kai-Henrik Peiffer, University Hospital Muenster, Gemany, HBV and HDV pathogenesis
- Esra Görgülü, University Hospital Frankfurt, HBV pathogenesis
- Reimer Johne, BfR Berlin, cell culture models HEV
- Matti Sallberg, Karolinska Institute, Sweden Vaccine Development
- Joachim Gever, University of Giessen, GermanyViral entry inhibitors
- Thorben Hasberg (Germany)
- Girish Nadkarni (Mount Sinai Health System)
Aims
- AI-based dynamic modelling of virus host interaction with respect to the impact on kinome, transcriptome, proteome and metabolome with respect to their relevance for virus replication and virus associated pathogenesis
- Rational design of antivirals considering the dynamic of specific effects and side effects in the context of emerging compensatory mechanisms
- Characterization of relevant factors and mechanisms leading to post covid syndrome (PCS) (“long covid”) and post vaccination syndrome (PVS)
- Development of vaccines with broad antiviral effectiveness based on AI-driven design of poly-epitope (covering the most relevant protective epitopes of highly pathogenic viruses) antigens which will be presented on a novel vaccine platform enabling flexible loading with various antigens
Activities
- Analysis of experimental omics data from in vitro systems and from patients for network analysis
- Kinome transcriptome and proteome modelling for virus infected cells
- Data analysis of electronic health records (HER) for definition of PCS and PVS
- EHR-based identification of factors causative for PCS and PVS
- Identification of B- and T-cell epitope of highly pathogenic viruses for rational design of synthetic antigens for optimal expression and processing
- Modelling of the impact of selective inhibitors on cellular omics profile with respect to antiviral activity and side effects
Digital Health Translation Lab
People
- Lab Lead: Anatol-Fiete Näher
- Researchers: Ahkyar Ahmed, Azeem Sikander, Buse Sarpkaya, Melna Treesa, Nahian Hasan,
Collaborators
- Falk Meyer-Eschenbach (Charité)
- Louis Agha Mir-Salim (Charité)
- Luis Kronfli (Charité)
- Nicolas Frey (Charité)
- Ivar Krumpal (University of Leipzig)
- Peer Kessler (University of Greifswald)
- Anna-Lena Fehlhaber (University of Hannover)
- Linea Schmidt (Chair Prof. Stern)
- Julia Denett (Chair Prof. Stern)
- GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
Aims
- Helping to build trustworthy healthcare AI that actually gets adopted
Activities
- Eliciting fairness preferences for medical AI through choice experiments.
- Real-world effectiveness evaluation of Digital Health Technologies.
- Investigating behavioral determinants of digital health outcomes.
AMR Research and AI Lab
People
- Lab Lead: Lothar H. Wieler
- Researchers: Akhyar Ahmed, Selin Girgin, Esther-Maria Antao
Collaborators
- Harm van Bakel; Girish Nadkarni (Mount Sinai Hospital, USA)
- Tim Walz, Pablo Guerrero (Data4Life, Germany)
- Ziyaad Dangor (Wits Vida, South Africa)
- Sam Kariuki (Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative Eastern Africa, Kenya)
- Andrew Farlow (University of Oxford, UK)
- CHAMPS Program Office (Emory University and The Task Force for Global Health, USA)
- Nico Marquardt, Tobias Kurth (Charite, Germany)
- Antje Flieger, Anne Harant, Tim Eckmanns, Sebastian Haller (RKI, Germany),
Aims
- Address the global AMR challenges and move beyond the one-size-fits-all strategies with the precision public health (PPH) approach
- Integrate EHRs, clinical notes, and pathogen whole-genome data to advance understanding of hospital-acquired infections (e.g., MRSA).
- Predict risks of AMR-infection outcomes
Activities
- Provide a multidisciplinary methodology to tackle AMR with novel and rich datasets across diverse countries, including low-and-middle income countries (LMICs).
- Develop and train predictive models on real-world data to forecast antimicrobial resistance patterns.
- Incorporate AI and digital health technologies – go further by creating advanced AI tools that power competent care and healthier lives.