New CRIION Professorship for Bioinformatics strengthens oncology research in Freiburg with Artificial Intelligence
Freiburg, 08/10/2025
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Maria Kalweit will develop and use methods of machine learning and bioinformatics to enable novel, data-driven diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic options in oncology and haematology with six years of funding.
Junior professor Dr. Maria Kalweit has taken on the newly established CRIION Professorship for Bioinformatics: AI for Oncology Research with Tenure Track at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Freiburg’s Faculty of Engineering. Established on 1 October, the professorship will develop and use methods of machine learning to study novel, data-driven diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic options in oncology and haematology. It should be possible to use the AI methods reliably despite limited amounts of data, high biological variance, and technical differences. They include models that learn with just a few examples and make their predictions so transparent that doctors can comprehend them and incorporate them into their decision making. The professorship was made possible by the Mertelsmann Foundation gGmbH, which is providing around 1.3 million euros in financial support for six years.
‘The funding underscores the great significance of artificial intelligence methods at the University of Freiburg and will further strengthen our research in this area’, emphasizes Rector Prof. Dr. Kerstin Krieglstein. ‘I’m particularly pleased that patients can profit from more precise diagnoses and improved therapies through the work of the professorship. We are very grateful to the Mertelsmann Foundation gGmbH for its help making the endowed professorship possible.’
“The funding underscores the great significance of artificial intelligence methods at the University of Freiburg and will further strengthen our research in this area.“
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Krieglstein
Rector, University of Freiburg
‘The CRIION professorship is an asset for our faculty and an important interface to medicine. It enables us to transfer artificial intelligence methods directly to oncological research and teaching, thus creating new synergies for the treatment of cancers’, says Prof. Dr. Frank Balle, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering.
AI in personalized medicine
Kalweit’s research focuses on the development of AI-assisted diagnostic systems, prediction models for the course of diseases, and methods for optimizing personalized therapies. ‘One of the biggest challenges in oncology lies in the enormous molecular and clinical complexity of the disease. In the future, I therefore see AI as a reliable partner in personalized medicine’, explains Kalweit. The aim of the methods is not to replace medical expertise but to help doctors to identify patterns from large amounts of data – thus making diagnoses more precise, predictions of the course of diseases better, and therapies easier to adapt to individual cases. ‘I’m looking forward to continuing and expanding my research in the context of a professorship and am grateful to the Mertelsmann Foundation and the University of Freiburg for this unique opportunity’, says Kalweit.
“One of the biggest challenges in oncology lies in the enormous molecular and clinical complexity of the disease. In the future, I therefore see AI as a reliable partner in personalized medicine.“
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Maria Kalweit
CRIION Professorship for Bioinformatics
Focus: Transfer to clinical practice
To transfer the new methods to clinical practice as soon as possible, the professorship is designed to enable close interdisciplinary collaboration, especially with the existing professorships at the Faculty of Engineering, the oncological departments at the Medical Center – University of Freiburg and the Faculty of Medicine. The professorship is also integrated into several research networks: the research centre BrainLinks-BrainTools, the University of Freiburg’s Cluster of Excellence CIBSS – Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies, and Collaborative Research Centre 1597 Small Data. The Comprehensive Cancer Center Freiburg (CCCF) at the Medical Center – University of Freiburg and the projects of the Collaborative Research Institute Intelligent Oncology (CRIION) of the Mertelsmann Foundation gGmbH are also part of the network.
About the researcher
Dr. Maria Kalweit earned her doctorate in computer science in 2022 at BrainLinks-BrainTools at the University of Freiburg. Prior to her appointment to the CRIION professorship, Kalweit was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Freiburg’s Neurorobotics Lab (2022–2025). She is already closely associated with the Collaborative Research Institute Intelligent Oncology (CRIION) of the Mertelsmann Foundation gGmbH: She was head of applied AI research there from 2022 to 2025 and currently serves as chief scientific officer.
Dr. Kalweit has received several awards for her research, including the Gips-Schüle Prize for junior researchers in the ‘Technical Sciences’ category in 2024 and the Wolfgang Gentner Prize for junior researchers from the University of Freiburg in 2023. Her work on early detection of seizures in epilepsy patients on an implantable microcontroller was recognized with the best paper award of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN) already in 2018.
About CRIION
The Mertelsmann Foundation has realized research projects in the context of the ‘Collaborative Research Institute Intelligent Oncology (CRIION)’ together with the University of Freiburg, the Medical Center – University of Freiburg, and further national and international CRIION-associated research groups since 2022. CRIION is responsible for coordinating the collaboration between transregional and international research groups with a corresponding thematic focus and also offers support with AI research and data management. The main aim of CRIION is to develop an adaptive, personalized cancer therapy. The institute uses the latest AI methods to identify digital biomarkers in image and omics data, precisely predict the course of diseases, and optimize therapies in real time. In this way, it bridges the gap between fundamental research, clinical applications, and translational medicine to control cancers more quickly, precisely, and individually.