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Charles Imbusch

Resume

The path so far

Bioinformatics, industry, a PhD in immunology, my own group and an MBA, in one timeline.

  1. since 2026 (Research)

    Helmholtz AI Associate

    Helmholtz Association

  2. current (Business)

    Senior Expert

    TheFuturum.AI

  3. 2025 (Business)

    Life Science Entrepreneurship Programme

    GeneNovate Rhein-Main

  4. since 11/2023 (Research)

    Assistant Professor (tenure track) of Quantitative Biomedicine

    Institute of Immunology, University Medical Center Mainz

  5. 2023 – 2024 (Education)

    Executive MBA

    Mannheim Business School

  6. since 12/2018 (Research)

    Team Leader, Computational Oncoimmunology

    Division of Applied Bioinformatics, DKFZ Heidelberg

    Single-cell and epigenetic analysis of immune cells in health and disease.

  7. 2017 – 2019 (Education)

    PhD (Dr. rer. nat.)

    Heidelberg University and DKFZ

    Epigenetic and transcriptomic characterization of tissue-resident regulatory T cells.

  8. 2017 – 2018 (Business)

    Consultant

    GeneWerk GmbH (now ProtaGene), Heidelberg

    Bioinformatics workflow for viral integration site detection.

  9. 2016 – 2017 (Business)

    Consultant

    BioMed X Institute, Heidelberg

    Bioinformatics for the Epigenetics and COPD team.

  10. 2014 – 2017 (Research)

    Bioinformatician

    Division of Applied Bioinformatics, DKFZ Heidelberg

    Telling driver from passenger mutations in cancer.

  11. 2012 – 2013 (Research)

    Data Engineer

    Data Management Group, DKFZ Heidelberg

    Data management for the German ICGC projects.

  12. 2011 – 2012 (Business)

    Junior Consultant

    Intershop Communications, Jena

    Visualisation and data migration for e-commerce software.

  13. 2010 – 2011 (Research)

    Scientific Assistant

    Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena

  14. 2004 – 2010 (Education)

    Diplom in Bioinformatics

    Friedrich Schiller University Jena

Skills

Data analysis

  • single-cell RNA, ATAC, TCR/BCR
  • CITE-seq
  • 10x Multiome
  • BD Rhapsody
  • spatial omics (Xenium, CODEX)
  • DNA methylation (WGBS, 450k/EPIC)
  • bulk RNA-seq
  • WGS/WES
  • chromatin accessibility & TF motifs
  • differential expression & methylation
  • somatic mutations (driver vs. passenger)
  • immune repertoires
  • HLA typing
  • cell-type deconvolution
  • transposable elements
  • viral integration sites
  • comparing studies without integration
  • genome assembly

Code & pipelines

  • R / Bioconductor
  • Python
  • Bash
  • Nextflow
  • Snakemake
  • SQL / PostgreSQL
  • Git / GitLab
  • Seurat
  • scverse
  • Java (earlier)
  • building web apps with AI tools

Linux, HPC & infrastructure

  • Linux, ~30 years
  • Slurm
  • LSF (bsub)
  • Docker
  • Apptainer / Singularity
  • conda
  • GPU computing
  • building compute clusters & storage
  • networking & VPNs
  • web servers & TLS
  • mail servers
  • monitoring
  • virtualisation
  • user management
  • large-scale data transfer & validation
  • data management (ICGC, cBioPortal)
  • self-hosting

AI

  • AI agents (Claude Code)
  • MCP servers
  • LLM-based apps
  • building web apps with AI tools
  • AI in research and lab operations

Leadership & business

  • leading a team across two sites
  • supervising students
  • project & budget management
  • grant writing
  • consortium coordination
  • strategy & finance (MBA)
  • consulting
  • entrepreneurship

Languages

German · English · Thai