Thorben Schulze

Research Project

I studied Bioinformatics (B.Sc.) and Informatics (M.Sc.) at the University of Hamburg. My academic background combines computational method development with a strong interest in structural biology and drug discovery. During my Master’s thesis, which I carried out in collaboration with the working group of Dr. Alke Meents at DESY, I worked on hit identification in electron density maps from X-ray screening experiments.

My research focuses on developing computational methods for Fragment-Based Drug Discovery (FBDD). I am particularly interested in hit identification in electron density maps, tethered and flexible docking, fragment growing, and computer vision–based approaches.

In my current project, I aim to build a highly automated workflow for FBDD. This workflow is designed to combine hit identification from electron density maps with pose generation for identified hits and the subsequent growth of binding fragments into larger candidate molecules. A further goal is to make the developed workflow available through a web server, so that it can be used more easily by the broader research community.