ON-DEMAND WEBINAR
Embracing the Noise: Proteomics, and the Future of Data-Driven Biology - An Interview with Maarten Dhaenens
Maarten Dhaenens
Scientific Director
ProGenTomics
Axel Martinelli
Head of Biology
BigOmics Analytics
About
In this interview, Axel Martinelli, Head of Biology at BigOmics Analytics, talks with Maarten Dhaenens, who heads the Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at Ghent University and its proteomics core facility, ProGenTomics. They discuss why biology can’t be treated like an engineering problem, and why curiosity, collaboration, and a little serendipity still drive the best discoveries.
The conversation also covers:
- Open, collaborative science: why Maarten’s team is sharing its pre-processed dataset publicly in Omics Playground, so other researchers can explore it.
- AI as a partner, not a replacement: how AI helps place findings within the existing literature, and why human creativity is still essential for discovering something new.
- Advice for young researchers: don’t be intimidated, trust your instincts, and leave room for the unexpected.
Watch the full interview to hear how an exploratory, hypothesis-generating approach to omics data can open new directions in your own research.
Speakers
Dr. Maarten Dhaenens received a Master’s degree in Zoology from Ghent University, Belgium, in 2002, where he was chasing East-African millipedes for his master’s dissertation. Following an additional masters in Medical Molecular Biotechnology, he joined the lab of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology where he first encountered mass spectrometry and later became executive principle investigator of the proteomics department when he finished his PhD in 2011.
In 2017 he founded ProGenTomics, a proteomics service lab specialized in histone analysis, which became the official proteomics core facility of Ghent University in 2023. Maarten was founding president of the European Young Proteomics Investigators Club (YPIC) in 2016 and became president of the Belgian Proteomics Association (BePA) in 2018. I 2024, he resigned from the latter and became Chair of the Industry Committee at EuPA.
Dr. Axel Martinelli is Head of Biology at BigOmics Analytics, a Swiss startup building intuitive platforms for omics data visualization and analysis. He holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology and a Master in bioinformatics. His research background spans parasitic genomics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and malaria-focused studies as an Assistant Professor at Hokkaido University. At BigOmics, he bridges lab and computational expertise to make advanced omics analysis accessible to researchers worldwide.
About Omics Playground
Omics Playground is a centralized data discovery platform for single and multi-omics data that allows you to store and interactively visualize data from your experiments.
- Centralized and Searchable Data Management: Seamlessly manage and compare multiple datasets, accelerating discovery over time.
- Standardized, Reproducible Results: Apply consistent statistical frameworks across studies to ensure robust and reliable outcomes.
- Publication-Ready Plots: Export high-quality, customizable figures perfect for presentations, publications, and team collaboration.
- AI-Assisted Data Interpretation: Get instant insights into your data with AI Summary Reports and the Obi chat.
