Current Lab Members

Dr. Hajk-Georg Drost

Group Leader & Associate Professor of Digital Biology
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1c1jOSEAAAAJ&hl=en

Email: hdrost001 [at] dundee.ac.uk or hajk-georg.drost [at] tuebingen.mpg.de

I am humbled by the vast variation of natural forms available on our planet. Today, I am among the lucky few that can devote time and resources to explore the fundamental mechanisms generating this wondrous diversity and harness them for pharmaceutical or medical application.

My academic path was enabled by studying computer science and bioinformatics with a strong focus on statistical learning, machine learning, and predictive modeling with applications in comparative genomics and evolutionary transcriptomics. I obtained my BSc and MSc in Bioinformatics, and a PhD in Computer Science at the Institute of Computer Science – Martin-Luther University Halle, Germany where I studied natural variation through the lens of the developmental hourglass model with Ivo Grosse and Marcel Quint. New questions concerning the dynamics and epigenetic control of genomes led me to pursue a postdoc in the lab of Jerzy Paszkowski at the Sainsbury Laboratory and Genetics Department of the University of Cambridge, where I studied the epigenetic control of transposable elements and how these elements can generate natural variation in genomic landscapes. As a next step, I wanted to integrate my insights from evo-devo and (epi)-genomics research and joined the second lab of Elliot Meyerowitz (first lab at Caltech) at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge. With Elliot, I sought to understand how regulatory changes differ across organ evolution in plants and animals to unveil the molecular processes whereby new organ morphology is integrated across diverse plant and animal species. Here, I was especially interested in the roles of orthologous genes, lncRNAs and circRNAs in regulating these developmental processes. At Cambridge, I fortunate to be elected Fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and Postdoctoral Affiliate of Trinity College.

After studying the mechanisms generating natural variation on different levels of organismal complexity, I was offered to start a Computational Biology Group in the Department of Molecular Biology (led by Detlef Weigel) at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tubingen, Germany. There my team explored how causal hypotheses can be tested when inferring gene regulatory interactions from multi-omics datasets to understand how biological function is retained evolutionary time or diversifies with perturbation effects that can lead to (developmental) diseases (e.g. cancer). For this attempt, I brought together a wide range of experts from computer science, bioinformatics, and molecular biology backgrounds to develop the tools and methodologies to approach this question.

My team’s research led to breakthrough technologies and discoveries at tree-of-life scale which allowed me to secure a Associate Professorship in Digital Biology within the Division of Computational Biology at the School of Life Sciences (University of Dundee), Scotland, UK. Here, we seek to make long-term investments into the intelligent software architectures and methodological innovation in Generative (Life Science) AI that is required to translate digital biology research into bio-pharmaceutical and medical application. In Dundee (Scotland), I was fortunate to be awarded a Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship which supports our efforts to uncover fundamental principles of developmental regulation to guide drug discovery efforts to prevent or mitigate the effects of human developmental diseases.

Dr. Erin Butterfield

ARIA PostDoc – Comparative Genomics and Computational Biology (Time in DrostLab: Oct 2025 – now)

Stefan Manolache

EASTBIO PhD Student – Dynamical Systems Biology and Digital Biology (Time in DrostLab: Sept 2024 – now)

Kwok Yin (Ken) Man

Royal Society PhD Student – Computational Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Time in DrostLab: Aug 2025 – now)

Lukas Maischak

Max Planck PhD Student – Causal Inference and Deep Learning (Time in DrostLab: April 2020 – now)

Zuzanna Malinowska

Research Consultant – Evolutionary Transcriptomics and Cancer Biology (Time in DrostLab: Nov 2020 – now)

Blythe Angus

Honours Student – Evolutionary Transcriptomics and Computational Biology (Time in DrostLab: Oct 2025 – now)

Georgo Giannakis

Honours Student – Evolutionary Genomics of Parkinson’s Disease (Time in DrostLab: Oct 2025 – now)

Sabrina Low

Research Intern – Cancer Bioinformatics (Time in DrostLab: Aug 2025 – now)

Current Co-Advised Lab Members

Jaruwatana (Sodai) Lotharukpong

Max Planck PhD Student – Evolutionary Transcriptomics in Brown Algae (Time in DrostLab: Sept 2021 – now); Co-Advisor: Prof Susana Coelho (Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tuebingen)

Erica Dinatale

Max Planck PhD Student – Genome Evolution in Brown Algae (Time in DrostLab: Sept 2021 – now); Co-Advisor: Prof Susana Coelho (Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tuebingen)

Eloise Clarkson

BBSRC BARIToNE PhD Student – Artificial Intelligence in Genomic Agriculture (Time in DrostLab: Oct 2025 – now); Primary-Advisor: Dr Paul Shaw (James Hutton Institute, Invergowrie)

Amir Yousefi

BBSRC BARIToNE PhD Student – Artificial Intelligence in Genomic Agriculture (Time in DrostLab: Oct 2025 – now); Primary-Advisor: Dr Paul Shaw (James Hutton Institute, Invergowrie)

Lab Alumni

Ilias Moutsopoulos

PhD Student – Gene Regulatory Networks (Time in DrostLab: Oct 2019 – Sept 2025); Primary-Advisor: Dr Irina Mohorianu (Wellcome – MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, Cambridge)

Abrielle Chong

SLS Summer Research Intern – Evolutionary Transcriptomics of Animal Bodyplan Formation (Time in DrostLab: June 2025 – Aug 2025)

Filipa Martins Costa

Master Student and Research Consultant – Evolutionary Transcriptomics and Optimization (Time in DrostLab: Oct 2024 – May 2025)

Beth Stewart

Honours Student – Comparative Genomics for Pharmacology (Time in DrostLab: Oct 2024 – March 2025)

Dr. Benjamin Buchfink

PhD Student/Graduate and PostDoc – Algorithmic Bioinformatics (Time in DrostLab: Sept 2019 – July 2024)

Émile Barbé

Bachelor Student and Research Intern – Algorithmic Bioinformatics (Time in DrostLab: March 2023 – March 2024)

Vincent Spath

Master Student – Algorithmic Bioinformatics (Time in DrostLab: March 2023 – March 2024)

Dimitrios Koutsogiannis

Master Student – Algorithmic Bioinformatics (Time in DrostLab: March 2022 – March 2023)

Erica Dinatale

Erasmus Plus Research Intern – Molecular Evolution of Transposable Elements Time in DrostLab: Nov 2020 – August 2021)

Jasmin Katz

Bachelor Student – Algorithmic Bioinformatics (Time in DrostLab: Nov 2020 – April 2021)