October 12, 2020
The SZTE’s Department of Software Engineering, with the participation of the MTA-SZTE Artificial Intelligence Research Group, won the Marie Curie Innovative Training Network project titled „EMUSE – Cheese microbial Ecosystems MUltiScale ModElling: mechanistic and data driven approaches integration”.
In the 10-member international consortium, SZTE staff, led by Dr. László Vidács and Prof. Tibor Gyimóthy, work with partners such as the Pasteur Institute or the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), which is among the top 50 highest ranking universities. The proposal is one of 114 supported works selected from 1285 applications submitted to the European Training Network category.
The four-year project aims to train young researchers in areas that are at the frontiers of life sciences and artificial intelligence. The goal of the research is to develop new, innovative modeling technologies to understand the functioning of complex microbiological ecosystems and to predict their behavior. The study of the life processes of microorganisms (the exploration of their gene pool, their metabolic processes, their interactions with one another, collectively "multi-omics") provides a wealth of information for understanding their system-level functioning. In order to achieve this, researchers combine traditional systems biology models with today’s state-of-the-art, deep neural network-based artificial intelligence methods. These new models greatly contribute to the more accurate characterization of microbiological ecosystems. The acquired knowledge will be used in the food industry, for example, to design more controlled fermentation processes, but the developed technologies will also be applicable in other fields of life sciences.