Keynote speakers for Basel 2027 will be announced here as they are confirmed.
Prof. Melissa Haendel
Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Professor, Department of Genetics & Director, Precision Health & Translational Informatics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill · Co-founder, Monarch Initiative
[Keynote title to be announced]
[Abstract to be announced]
Dr. Haendel’s background is in molecular genetics and translational informatics. Her vision is to weave together health care systems, basic science research, and patient-generated data through the development of data integration technologies and innovative data capture strategies. Her research has focused on integration of genotype–phenotype data to improve rare disease diagnosis and mechanism discovery. She has contributed to international standards organizations worldwide, in particular the Mondo disease ontology, which reconciles and classifies global genetic and rare disease knowledge.
Prof. Cátia Pesquita
Associate Professor & Vice-Director, LASIGE, Department of Informatics, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon · Leader, Health and Biomedical Informatics Research Line
[Keynote title to be announced]
[Abstract to be announced]
Prof. Pesquita has a multidisciplinary background spanning Biology and Computer Science, and leads the LiSeDa Lab at the intersection of AI and Data Science — particularly knowledge graphs, explainable and trustworthy AI, and neurosymbolic AI applied to the life and health sciences. She is also active in promoting computer science careers to young women.
Helena Deus, PhD
Director of Translational Medicine & Semantic Data Products, Bristol Myers Squibb · PhD, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
[Keynote title to be announced]
[Abstract to be announced]
Dr. Deus is a bioinformatician, longtime Semantic Web practitioner, and life-sciences data leader with two decades of experience translating biological complexity into computable, decision-ready knowledge. A former W3C Task Force leader, she has built semantic infrastructures and knowledge-driven platforms across academic research, precision oncology, scientific publishing, consulting, and biopharma. Her passion is connecting biology for insight generation — using computational semantics, ontologies, and graph topologies to expose hidden relationships, make data interoperable, and advance discovery, translational medicine, and AI in the life sciences.
Marco Pagni
Team Lead, Computational Biology, Vital-IT, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Lausanne, Switzerland
[Keynote title to be announced]
[Abstract to be announced]