2025 was an exciting year for AITHYRA, time to THANK our employees, stakeholders and the scientific community, who helped AITHYRA, the new Research Institute for Biomedical Artificial Intelligence of the Austrian Academy of Sciences to thrive and to become visible.
- We took over two floors at the Marxbox at the VBC Campus in 2025, and ensured that our first hires could start working in the office and wet lab space. Thanks to the ÖAW, the Vienna Business Agency, the City of Vienna, the landlord and our neighbours for making this happen.
- We built an Admin Team that supports science and the vision of AITHYRA, and contributes to institutional responsibilities with professionalism and passion.
- We purchased a lot of stuff, from office furniture to laboratory equipment, from IT infrastructure to robotics. Thanks to the generous support of the Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung Mainz, the non-profit foundation that is committed to promoting biomedical research.
- We welcomed our Scientific Director Life Sciences, a world leading expert in targeted protein degradation, who convinced an international hiring committee chaired by Maria Leptin.
- We hired our Head of AI Driven Lab Robotics, who not only brought experience in lab automation to the institute, but also regularly attracted media attention.
- We hired our Starting PIs and built a relationship with our first Adjunct PIs. We now have a strong AI and LS Faculty at AITHYRA with great potential, that will contribute to scientific innovation and the corporate culture of the institute. Additional PI calls will follow in 2026.
- We had a wonderful AITHYRA Symposium #AIforLifeScience in September 2025 in Vienna, and could not have imagined a better Keynote speaker than Nobel Laureate Frances Arnold who gave an inspiring and joyful lecture.
- We had our first AITHYRA-CeMM Joint International PhD Call, and are looking forward to our PhD students and Postdocs who will join the institute at the beginning of 2026. Thanks to TU Wien, University of Vienna, Medical University of Vienna, University of Oxford, and EPFL AI Center for being the academic homes of our scientists.
- We created our AITHYRA corporate identity with Studio Dumbar, embracing logo, motion and sound design, and we have launched our aithyra.at website with colorful photos of our growing AITHYRA community.
- We managed to interact with all sorts of guests, from applicants to stakeholders, from friends to competitors, from cyber criminals to supporters. AITHYRA is a place with open-source mindset and global collaborations.
Many good things happened. Many challenges are still ahead of us.
Let’s celebrate the achievements and welcome the new endeavors ahead of us.
Happy New Year!