The ISBGroup Blog

August 2025 was no exception with regard to the ISB Group’s international engagements. After the engaging YoungBMC Symposium at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam on 26th August where Ralph Monte presented his work “Using Machine Learning Models and Postmortem Metabolomics for Prediction of Ketoacidosis-related Deaths” for fellow young scientists, Ralph, together with Maria-Anna Sotiropoulou headed for the Benelux Metabolomics Days at Leiden University.

The Benelux Metabolomics Days on 27^th and 28^th August brought together researchers from the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg to exchange cutting-edge advances in metabolomics and its biomedical applications. This year’s program emphasized the integration of experimental metabolomics with computational approaches and clinical research, covering diverse areas such as cancer metabolism, microbiome dynamics, exposomics, organ-on-chip technologies, and technological advances in mass spectrometry.

Maria-Anna Sotiropoulou and Ralph Monte were there presenting their work in the poster sessions with titles “Identifying Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)-Associated Metabolic Changes Using ¹³C Metabolic Flux Analysis (MFA)” and “Using postmortem metabolomics to predict ketoacidosis deaths: comparing three machine learning methods” respectively. Maria-Anna presented her work that applied ¹³C MFA to neuronal models of AD to quantitatively map intracellular metabolism. Using ¹³C-labelled Glucose and Glutamine tracers combined with advanced EMU-modeling, preliminary results and flux estimations were presented. In his presentation, Ralph explained how supervised machine learning models can be used to accurately predict ketoacidosis-related deaths. This indicates that machine learning models could be used in forensic settings, e.g., for cause of death determination using the postmortem metabolome.

One of the most impactful talks came from Sarah-Maria Fendt, who presented her group’s research on how liver steatosis worsens colorectal cancer liver metastasis outcomes. Analyzing patients’ data, she showed that liver fat accumulation correlates with the transition from encapsulated metastases (associated with better prognosis) to invasive replacement metastases (linked to poor prognosis). Using mouse models and 3D tumor spheroid cultures, her team demonstrated that excess fatty acids promote tumor aggressiveness through upregulation of proline metabolism, which fuels collagen biosynthesis. This allows cancer cells to build their own extracellular matrix and invade healthy liver tissue.

Alongside this, Marcel Kwiatkowski presented advances in proteo-metabolomics using Metabolic Flux Analysis, highlighting the regulatory interplay between metabolic fluxes and protein modifications. Justin van der Hooft demonstrated how machine learning methods can dramatically expand the reach of mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. He presented computational metabolomics tools that use machine learning to enhance metabolite annotation and analogue searches across complex data sets.

Finally, Alexandra (Sasha) Zhernakova shared insights into microbiome-metabolome dynamics during pregnancy and early life. Her work connects maternal and infant microbiomes with health outcomes, highlighting how early environmental and metabolic exposures shape immune and developmental outcomes.

In August, 4 people from ISB group were in Copenhagen to participate in the “Nordic Ooc/MPS summer workshop”. MPS stands for Microphysiological Systems, and it is another name for experimental models such as organoids, spheroids, organs-on-a-chip, etc. We have been working together with AstraZeneca to develop digital twins for such models for many years, and for this reason we were invited to give two(!) keynote presentations at this event.

The first keynote was held jointly by Oscar Silfvergren from our side, and Liisa Vilén at AstraZeneca. Liisa leads their MPS team, and she and Oscar work tightly regarding modelling, planning of new experiments, etc. They gave a presentation on their collaboration and on the recently submitted project manuscript on multi-scale and multi-species, mechanistic models for MPS and exenatide.

Apart from this, Gunnar Cedersund gave the morning and opening keynote for the second half of the workshop: a hackathon on digital twins for MPS. This second half was a whole-day event to learn the basics of what digital twins are, why they are useful (in medicine, drug development, and for MPS), and also the basics on how to do such digital twin models, via a hands-on computer lab. All participants (38 signed up Ph.D. students and researchers), also had the option of bringing their own data, and getting started on a new project regarding the creation of a model for their own research data and question. Quite a few participants made use of this possibility, and several new collaborations and modelling projects were born during this event.

On the whole, this was a fun, interesting, and useful event arranged by the Nordic network for Organs-on-a-chip, the EU project Open Mind, and their eminent coordinator Jenny Emneus.

How do we prepare for future health challenges before challenges turn into problems? On October 14, Sweden’s leading experts and researchers bring together medical, psychological, technological and societal perspectives for an inspiring and dynamic afternoon on strategies for preventive healthcare. ISB Group leader and AI expert Gunnar Cedersund together with Sweden’s foremost health guru Johan Holmäster will be presenting medical digital twins that motivate, prevent risks and show the way towards a healthier society.

Read detailed information and sign up.

On May 6, Gunnar Cedersund held the opening keynote presentation at a workshop in Gothenburg. The event was arranged by the Gothenburg Center for Digital Health, and featured lots of interesting presentations during the day. The title of the event was “From idea to patient benefit”, and the various talks dealt with innovative ideas and technologies, utilizing e.g. AI, drones and robots, patient-centered medicine, etc. Gunnar’s opening keynote presentation dealt with, as usual, our digital twins, and outlined how they are developed in order to help transform healthcare into one centered around P4-medicine: personalized, predictive, preventive, and participatory medicine. This will be done by giving all patients access to their own digital twin. This twin is constantly updated, by combining wearable sensors, electronic healthcare records (journal data), and qualitative observations done by the patients themselves. The twin will then be used by the patient himself/herself, as well as by a variety of different actors, such as personal trainers and health coaches, medical doctors, physiotherapists, eldercare personnel, relatives, etc. A first clinical study, to test this idea, will start in the autumn, as part of the big STRATIF-AI project. 

On May 21, we held a new edition of the workshop entitled “BME@LIU day”. This is an annual event, revolving around Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Linköping University (LIU). For the last 4 years, Gunnar Cedersund has been the chair of the program committee, and we are therefore heavily involved in the arrangement of this conference. 

One of the most fun things with this event is that it is growing steadily (see graph above). When Gunnar took over 4 years ago, there were just above 100 participants, and the program consisted of a single track the whole day. Since then, the event has grown in different ways, and we now have multiple parallel sessions, which are co-arranged with various other organizations, and the number of participants has grown to 250. This has also been accompanied with a corresponding growth in the number of students and companies participating in the local arena and poster session throughout the day (see picture below).

This year, we featured two keynote speakers: i) Mikael Forsgren from MathCore, who gave an abridged version of the opening keynote presentation held at the gigantic EASD conference last year, ii) Ralph Maddison, from Australia, who spoke about his SMART home, which features various eHealth solutions and sensors, to aid in a new smart and integrated living situation for heart failure patients. More information about the program and event can be found at the BME Conference website as well as in the news article written by LIU, featuring lots of nice pictures from the event.

Elin Nyman and Henrik Podéus both participated in the 2025 Systems Biology of Human Disease (SBHD) conference, held in Berlin and hosted by the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

Elin Nyman presented “Machine Learning for Forensic Predictions of Time and Cause of Death”, showcasing how metabolomics data combined with machine learning models can support forensic investigations.

Henrik Podéus presented hiw work on “Enhancing Disease Screening Through Alcohol Consumption Markers and Digital Monitoring Tools”, highlighting the use of our digital twin models in innovative approaches to monitor alcohol consumption.

Both Elin’s and Henrik’s contributions added valuable perspectives to the interdisciplinary agenda of the conference, which this year placed particular emphasis on artificial intelligence, cancer, infectious diseases, and aging.

Gunnar Cedersund held a presentation at the workshop “Public healthcare under change – Conditions, expectations and requirements”. This event is a part of the MultiHelix Think Tank in Lund, and was held on May 8. The event included presentations from a variety of different actors related to health, and the health ecosystem. I, Katja Woxell, was there as well, and some of my main takeaways from the event included: 

• Climate change is the world’s biggest health risk;
• 1,2 million Swedes take antidepressants, and this is made into an individual problem rather than a societal problem;
• Oral healthcare is characterized by extreme inequity both world-wide and nationally;
• Existential healthcare tools for mindful everyday living as well as national efforts for result- and value-driven healthcare systems are in place. 

A promising national and world-wide preventive healthcare project, presented at this event, is our Medical Digital Twin, developed by Gunnar Cedersund and his colleagues. The project gives each user access to his/her own physiological digital twin that shows what is happening in the user’s body and organs now and what those processes will look like in the future, depending on the user’s lifestyle choices. The project has a potential for educating and empowering individuals to make smarter lifestyle choices that positively impact their long-term state of health. Apart from me, Gunnar Cedersund was accompanied by his colleagues – Johan Holmäster and Mats Janson. Johan and Mats are involved both in the development of eHealth solutions and health programs, and in the newer – cognitive – part of Medical Digital Twin, concerning sound lifestyle based on a triangulation of individuals’ emotions, thoughts and physical and mental healthcare practices.