Digitisation in the field of Life Science

Bioinformatics is where the rich, diverse and often colorful discipline of the life sciences meets the cold, deterministic and efficiency driven world of computer science.

In Bioinformatics, almost any solution is data-intensive and highly complex. A profound knowledge of chemistry, biochemistry, biology, medicine, and pharmacology is necessary to arrive at such solutions. Computer science provides the software tools to turn the solution approaches into applicable results.

Bioinformatics is an enabling technology that allowed far-reaching discoveries in the field of:

• Genomes and proteomes,
• gene and protein expression and regulation,
• metabolic and regulatory, signal pathways,
• Structures of macromolecules, esp. DNA, RNA and proteins,
• interactions between macromolecules and between macromolecules and other substances, e.g. messengers and inhibitors, at the molecular and atomic level. 
   

Can aspects of Bioinformatics be patented?

In principle, several aspects of Bioinformatics are eligible for patent protection. However, the patenting of algorithms and processes for understanding and making use of biological data presents some challenges. The German Patent Act and the European Patent Convention exclude the patenting of abstract algorithms as such. On the diagnostics side, the legislation wants to give maximum freedom to the treating physician and restricts the patenting of diagnostic procedures as non-patentable if directly related to the body to be treated.

Interdisciplinary team of computer scientists and (bio)chemists

To patent your innovations in this field of technology, Meissner Bolte works with an interdisciplinary team of computer scientists and (bio)chemists. The team includes Dr. Lukas Bischoff, who studied chemistry and biochemistry, and Mr. Julian Würmser, who studied computer science and has had a special affinity for the discipline of bioinformatics since his studies at Technical University Munich (TUM). 

Julian lectures at the European Conference on Computational Biology and advises small and medium-sized companies in the bioinformatics sector on effective measures to protect their intellectual property.

During his doctoral studies, Lukas worked on the computer-based reconstruction of three-dimensional structures of biomacromolecules and their interaction partners. Today, he is very active as a patent attorney in the life science sector.