Tomas Helikar

Biography
Tomas Helikar has spent more than 15 years building multi-scale models of the immune system (immune digital twins), from inside cells to virtual patient populations, a head start that is slow to reproduce. That work underpins a comprehensive immune core that can be rapidly extended to many of the 400+ immune diseases as modules. Earlier immune models identified drug repurposing candidates for multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and primary biliary cholangitis and identified treatment combinations for influenza, with leads tested in cell experiments and are now progressing to animal studies. He is the founder and CEO of ImmuNovus, a company he founded to accelerate the translation of his academic work at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he is Eberhard Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, and founder of the Digital Twin Innovation Hub. His academic lab has been funded by NIH, NSF and DoW.

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Talk
AI Meets Mechanism with Immune Digital Twins
Every patient's complex immune network is different, so the same drug helps some and fails others. Our mechanistic immune models scale quickly across diseases, from psoriasis and IBD to transplant and infectious diseases, giving AI an explainable layer to ask why patients respond, how drugs compare, and which markers might flag responders.

AI for Emerging Therapeutics Showcase:
ImmuNovus, Inc.
ImmuNovus builds an AI-enabled mechanistic immune digital twin, run across virtual patients and built on our published core immune model. It gives pharma and biotech I&I teams an explainable mechanism layer alongside pattern-based AI, simulating how a drug might work across the immune system versus alternatives, explaining why, proposing candidate responder markers and, as disease modules are added, indication priorities.