Media coverage
Selected press coverage and recorded talks and interviews about the Bio-Ontology Research Group and its work.
- AI tool maps hidden links between diseases
2025 · KAUST CEMSE · Read the paper →Coverage of a method that mines causal relationships between diseases from the literature and uses them to improve polygenic risk scores.
- New genetic maps expected to improve personalized medicine for underrepresented populations
2025 · KAUST News · Read the paper →KAUST coverage of JaSaPaGe, a population-specific pangenome reference for Saudi and Japanese populations built to improve variant detection and diagnosis for groups underrepresented in existing genome references.
- Study reveals genetic insights about Saudi and Japanese populations
2025 · Arab News · Read the paper →Press coverage of the KAUST/Tufts/JIHS pangenome reference (JaSaPaGe) for Saudi Arabian and Japanese populations, improving variant calling to help close the diagnostic gap for underrepresented populations.
- We unlocked the Saudi Genome
2025 · Nature Middle East · Read the paper →Feature on KSA001, the first complete reference-quality genome from a Saudi individual, and its expansion into a public Saudi pangenome (the group's bio-ontology-research-group/KSA001 resource), addressing underrepresentation of Arab populations in genomics.
- AI tool maps hidden links between diseases
2025 · EurekAlert! · Read the paper →KAUST press release on mining causal disease-disease relationships from the literature to improve polygenic risk prediction.
- AI tool maps hidden links between diseases
2025 · Medical Xpress · Read the paper →Medical Xpress coverage of causal disease-disease relationship mining for improved polygenic risk scores (syndication of the KAUST/EurekAlert release).
- Scientists link 8,000+ diseases in one giant web
2025 · StudyFinds · Read the paper →StudyFinds feature on the group's causal map linking thousands of diseases and its use for polygenic risk prediction.
- AI tool predicts function of unknown proteins
2024 · KAUST Discovery · Read the paper →Coverage of DeepGO-SE, which combines protein language models with logical inference over the Gene Ontology to predict protein function, ranking among the top methods in the international CAFA assessment.
- AI tool predicts function of unknown proteins
2024 · EurekAlert! · Read the paper →KAUST press release on DeepGO-SE, combining protein language models with logical inference over the Gene Ontology for protein function prediction.
- AI tool predicts function of unknown proteins
2024 · Phys.org · Read the paper →Phys.org coverage of DeepGO-SE protein function prediction (syndication of the KAUST/EurekAlert release).
- Unlocking the secrets of proteins with cutting-edge AI
2024 · SciTechDaily · Read the paper →SciTechDaily coverage of DeepGO-SE protein function prediction (syndication of the KAUST/EurekAlert release).
- AI unveils mysteries of unknown proteins' functions
2024 · Neuroscience News · Read the paper →Neuroscience News coverage of DeepGO-SE protein function prediction (syndication of the KAUST/EurekAlert release).
- A new approach to rare disease diagnosis
2023 · KAUST Discovery · Read the paper →Coverage of STARVar, a tool that ranks disease-associated genetic variants from patient symptoms recorded in standardized or natural-language form, outperforming other variant-prioritization tools.
- A new approach to rare disease diagnosis
2023 · EurekAlert! · Read the paper →KAUST press release on STARVar, ranking disease-associated variants from free-text patient symptoms.
- AI-based tool leverages diverse data sources for a new approach to rare disease diagnosis
2023 · Medical Xpress · Read the paper →Medical Xpress coverage of STARVar, ranking disease variants from free-text patient symptoms (syndication of the KAUST/EurekAlert release).
- New AI tool could aid in the diagnosis of enigmatic rare diseases
2023 · News-Medical · Read the paper →News-Medical coverage of STARVar for rare-disease variant prioritization (syndication of the KAUST/EurekAlert release).
- Appointment of Prof. Xin Gao as Interim Director and Prof. Robert Hoehndorf as Interim Associate Director of CBRC
2022 · KAUST CEMSE - How much do model organism phenotypes contribute to the computational identification of human disease genes?
2022 · KAUST CEMSE · Read the paper →Coverage of a study quantifying how much model-organism phenotype data improves computational identification of human disease genes.
- BORG team win at the KAUST-NVIDIA GPU Hackathon 2022
2022 · KAUST CEMSEThe Bio-Ontology Research Group team wins the KAUST-NVIDIA GPU Hackathon 2022 for GPU-distributed multimodal protein function prediction.
- Robert Hoehndorf promoted to associate professor at KAUST
2020 · KAUST CEMSE - Algorithm turns cancer gene discovery on its head
2020 · KAUST Discovery · Read the paper →Coverage of a machine-learning approach that predicts tumor-driving genes from biological features rather than sequence data alone, using tumor sequencing as validation.
- Alumna Imane Boudellioua (PhD '19, MS '12) receives KACST prize
2020 · KAUST CEMSEBORG alumna Imane Boudellioua receives a KACST national prize for her work on phenotype-based variant prioritization.
- Algorithm turns cancer gene discovery on its head
2020 · EurekAlert! · Read the paper →KAUST press release on ontology-based machine learning that predicts tumor-driving genes from biological features rather than sequence alone.
- Algorithm turns cancer gene discovery on its head
2020 · Medical Xpress · Read the paper →Medical Xpress coverage of ontology-based prediction of cancer driver genes (syndication of the KAUST/EurekAlert release).
- Database to support infectious disease research
2019 · KAUST Discovery · Read the paper →Coverage of PathoPhenoDB, a public database from the group linking human pathogens to the clinical phenotypes of the diseases they cause, in support of infectious-disease research.
- Symbol of change for AI development
2019 · KAUST Discovery · Read the paper →Coverage of the group's embedding methods that translate symbolic, human-readable ontology knowledge into vector spaces so neural networks can combine logical reasoning with statistical learning.
- Symbol of change for AI development
2019 · Tech Xplore · Read the paper →Tech Xplore coverage of the group's ontology embeddings that bridge symbolic AI and machine learning (syndication of the KAUST release).
- Database to support infectious disease research
2019 · Medical Xpress · Read the paper →Medical Xpress coverage of PathoPhenoDB, linking pathogens to disease phenotypes (syndication of the KAUST release).
- KAUST and KACST join forces to prevent infectious diseases
2018 · KAUST CEMSE - Assistant Professor Robert Hoehndorf awarded Center Partnership Fund
2018 · KAUST CEMSE - Algorithm scours datasets to diagnose medical mysteries
2017 · KAUST CEMSE · Read the paper →Coverage of the PhenomeNET Variant Predictor (PVP), which prioritizes disease-causing genomic variants by reasoning over phenotype ontologies and model-organism data.
- One size does not fit all: an innovative analytical tool will help pave the way for tailor-made health care
2017 · KAUST CEMSE · Read the paper →Coverage of phenotype-driven variant prioritization for personalized medicine, ranking candidate disease variants for individual patients.
- Professor Robert Hoehndorf's PhenomeNET method wins at Ontology matching workshop
2016 · KAUST CEMSE - Disease researchers have a way with words
2015 · KAUST Discovery · Read the paper →Coverage of text-mining work that extracts disease phenotypes from the biomedical literature to build a computational map of human diseases (the human diseasome).
- Modeling diseases with AI
2026 · MenaML Machine Learning School (YouTube)MenaML 2026 lecture on modeling diseases with AI: from ontologies and knowledge graphs to embeddings for rare-disease and variant pathogenicity prediction.
- 10 years of the AberOWL ontology repository, moving towards federated infrastructure
2025 · BOSC 2025 / ISMB-ECCB (YouTube)Talk at the Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC) 2025 on a decade of the AberOWL ontology repository and its move towards federated infrastructure.
- The role of ontology in biomedical AI — introduction
2022 · ROBI workshop (YouTube)Introductory lecture from the workshop/tutorial on the role of ontologies in biomedical artificial intelligence.
- Data Science and Computational Statistics Seminar (KAUST)
2022 · KAUST Data Science Seminar (YouTube)KAUST Data Science and Computational Statistics seminar talk on neuro-symbolic methods in bioinformatics.
- Machine learning with ontologies in biomedicine
2021 · IndoML 2021 (YouTube)Invited talk at IndoML 2021 on using biomedical ontologies as background knowledge for machine-learning models.
- Machine learning with biomedical ontologies for precision health
2021 · Leibniz AI Lab (YouTube)Leibniz AI Lab lecture on neuro-symbolic machine learning with biomedical ontologies and its application to precision health.
- Robert Hoehndorf at the KAUST-MBSC Healthcare Analytics and Data Science Workshop
2020 · KAUST CEMSE (Facebook)Short clip from Robert Hoehndorf's talk at the KAUST-MBSC Invitational Healthcare Analytics and Data Science Workshop.
- Diagnosing mysterious diseases with new genomics tools
2019 · KAUST CEMSE (YouTube)Short KAUST explainer on diagnosing rare diseases by matching genetic variants to patient symptoms with phenotype-based tools.
- Ontologies in computational biology (ISMB 2018 tutorial, with Michel Dumontier)
2018 · ISMB 2018 Tutorial PM8 (YouTube)ISMB 2018 tutorial on the use of ontologies in computational biology, co-presented with Michel Dumontier.
- Sci-Café: Can big data solve my health problems?
2017 · KAUST (YouTube)KAUST Sci-Café public panel on big data in health, with Robert Hoehndorf (CBRC) among the panelists.
For weekly group news see the News listing.