Life Science Informatics Students visit Bayer Campus
A group of b-it Life Science Informatics students visited the pharmaceutical and agrochemical company Bayer AG and its campus in Leverkusen on April 26, 2024. Dr. Georg Mogk, Principal Expert Applied Mathematics at Bayer, presented an outstanding program. After an extensive tour of Chempark Leverkusen, the students had the opportunity to meet with researchers from Process & Technology Development (PTD). Company visits like this are a great opportunity to see how research and development (R&D) works in practice and may be a first step linking science and industry.
During their tour of the Chempark Leverkusen, the students got an impression of a real chemical park with companies from the entire chemical industry (not just Bayer). The production facilities of the individual companies in the Chempark are interconnected via material and energy flows and thus benefit from each other. The Chempark has its own Rhine port and rail network for transporting raw materials and finished products. After the more than one-hour tour of the Chempark, the visitors had the opportunity to meet researchers from the Process & Technology Development (PTD) department who are working in the field of Chemoinformatics, in particular in the areas of molecular simulation with quantum computers, hybrid modeling, retrosynthesis and early drug discovery. Further insights were provided into computer vision for crop and seedling monitoring. All this was complemented by two laboratory visits. This was an excellent visit, tailored to the students' whishes and delivered in an outstanding manner.
The group included more than 30 current Life Science Informatics students from 13 different countries and two staff members, Professor Holger Fröhlich from Fraunhofer SCAI and Dr. Daniela Treutlein from the Transfer Center enaCom, establishing important links to Dr. Georg Mogk, Principal Expert Applied Mathematics at Bayer and the b-it Life Science Informatics program.
