IKIM Research Group Essen/Bochum
Computational Hematology is the junior research group at the Institute of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, University Hospital Essen, working at the intersection of hematology, data science and artificial intelligence.
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01
Using genetic and clinical data to describe biologically meaningful groups of acute leukemia, with an emphasis on acute myeloid leukemia and large collaborative cohorts.
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Data-driven study of graft-versus-host disease, infection, immune reconstitution, and related complications after hematopoietic cell transplantation.
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Learning from data already collected in hematology care, including laboratory results, pathology reports, and transfusion records, without new specialized assays.
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Reproducible methods and public software for computational hematology, including the aGVHD grading calculator at gvhd.online.
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Published tools for decisions in hematology care, including data-driven grading of acute graft-versus-host disease.
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Making cancer data comparable across hospitals and consortia, including HARMONY Alliance cohorts and IKIM work on structured representations of pathology and clinical text.
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Work that already has a public paper, abstract or tool.
Validating
Within the HARMONY Alliance, the group is developing and internationally validating an unsupervised genomic classification of AML. This work has been presented in the EHA 2025 plenary session and as an ASH 2025 oral abstract. It is not yet represented here as a peer-reviewed article.
Cancer genomics and leukemia classification · HARMONY Alliance
Published
A series of papers from the group examines CMV kinetics, immune reconstitution and relapse risk after HCT, including work led by Saskia Leserer.
Transplant outcomes and complications · Clinical HCT cohorts as described in the papers
Recently published
A 2026 Nature Communications paper reports international testing and refinement of algorithms that predict acute leukemia subtypes from routine laboratory data. Related commentary appears in Lancet Digital Health (2024).
AI and real-world clinical data · International hospital network described in the paper
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2026
NatureCommunications
Turki et al., Nat Commun 2026, Fig. 1. CC BY 4.0.
Nature Communications · 2026
International testing of algorithms that read acute leukemia subtypes from routine laboratory data — a first-author Nature Communications paper for the group.
Turki AT et al.
2023
NatureCommunications
Bayraktar, Graf et al., Nat Commun 2023, Fig. 1. CC BY 4.0.
Nature Communications · 2023
The group’s signature transplant-complications paper: data-driven grading of acute GVHD, with a public calculator and code.
Bayraktar E et al.
Acta Haematologica · 2025
AI in transplant care
Acta Haematologica · 2025
A review of AI in transplant care and complication management, written with lab co-authors.
Turki AT et al.
2026
VoxSanguinis
Turki et al., Vox Sang 2026, Fig. 1. CC BY 4.0.
Vox Sanguinis · 2026
A primer on big data and AI in transfusion medicine, with Computational Hematology Lab affiliation on the author line.
Turki AT et al.
American Journal of Hematology · 2022
Time-dependent prediction of mortality and cytomegalovirus reactivation after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation using machine learning
American Journal of Hematology · 2022
Eisenberg L et al.
EHA 2025 Congress, Plenary Abstract Session · 2025
Development and Independent Validation of Unsupervised Genomic Classification of Patients With Acute Myeloid Leukemia Using Hierarchical Dirichlet Mixture Models: A HARMONY Alliance Study
EHA 2025 Congress, Plenary Abstract Session · 2025 · Conference abstract
EHA 2025 plenary abstract on unsupervised genomic classification of AML in HARMONY. Conference abstract, not a journal article.
Amin Turki
04
2025-09-05 · SOHO 2025
Interview on AI and digital transformation in bone marrow transplantation, including data integration, digital monitoring, and individualized care.
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Principal Investigator
Institute of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, University Hospital Essen · Department of Hematology and Oncology, Marienhospital University Hospital Bochum
Priv.-Doz. Dr. med. Dr. phil. Amin Turki graduated from the University of Münster, Germany and earned his PhD from Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France. He leads the junior research group Computational Hematology at the Institute of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine at the University Hospital Essen and is also deputy-head of the Department of Hematology and Oncology at Marienhospital University Hospital Bochum. His main areas of expertise are malignant hematology, cellular therapy as well as data science in hematology.
Research Assistant
IKIM, University Hospital Essen
Katja Scheidler works at IKIM where medicine meets quantitative methods, after earlier training in economics. Her doctoral research follows intestinal bacterial patterns after allogeneic stem cell transplantation and early bloodstream infection, setting routine stool cultures from Essen beside sequencing measurements from Memorial Sloan Kettering. She contributes to the group’s papers on AI in transplant care and transfusion medicine, and in 2025 received the BRYCK special prize for Alphademia, a proposal for exploring the scientific literature visually.
Postdoc
IKIM, University Hospital Essen · IRCCS Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche di Bologna
Clustering, survival, and network methods for Harmony leukemia data, other hematologic malignancies, solid tumours, and microbiome kinetics.
Software Engineer
Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences
Building a Python pipeline to test the EASIX biomarker (LDH × creatinine / platelets) as a predictor of mortality in a cardiac cohort of about 54,000 patients, using FHIR data from the Medical Informatics Initiative research portal.
PhD candidate
IKIM, University Hospital Essen
Doctoral research at IKIM on machine learning in cancer, moving from clinical and experimental work toward computational methods.
MD Thesis (Promotion)
IKIM, University Hospital Essen · Institut für Pathologie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
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Respect. Professionalism. Excellence. Team. Sparkling.
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12 Oct 2026
At the DGHO 2026 annual meeting in Vienna, Katja Scheidler presented doctoral research on intestinal bacterial patterns and early bloodstream infections after allogeneic stem cell transplantation. The project sets routine stool cultures from University Medicine Essen next to sequencing measurements from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The two recordings describe related biology. They are not the same assay, and the comparison is observational.
LinkedIn post · Congress · DGHO Jahrestagung 2026
3 Aug 2026
Five-episode German-language series with Felicitas Thol and Amin Turki, hosted by Friedrich Overkamp. The episodes cover AML diagnostics and first treatment planning, therapy for fit and unfit patients, supportive care, measurable residual disease, and clinical studies including AI. Listen on the series page.
5 May 2026
Stefano Polizzi, from Bologna, speaks on what physicians can learn from physicists. Tuesday seminar of the Faculty of Medicine, 5 May 2026 at 12:00, lecture hall of the administration building, Hufelandstraße 55, Essen.
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