Julio Saez-Rodriguez is Head of Research at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), Professor on leave of Medical Bioinformatics and Data Analysis at the Faculty of Medicine of Heidelberg University,  Group Leader at the EMBL- Heidelberg University Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit (MMPU),  member of ELLIS Heidelberg and a co-director of the DREAM challenges.

Julio is broadly interested in how large biological data sets can be interrogated with mathematical models to unveil the molecular basis of disease as a means to develop novel therapies. The current emphasis of his research is on single-cell and spatial data, multi-omics integration, and understanding multi-cellular communication. He is particularly interested in how to use the existing knowledge of biological processes to support computational analysis. He supports open science, especially by developing open-source computational tools and co-organization of the DREAM challenges. While the computational methods are broadly applicable,  his focus is on cancer,  autoimmune diseases, and conditions of the kidney and heart.