David Thybert

I am a computational biologist specialising in the integration of diverse omics datasets through systems biology and advanced machine learning to investigate the evolution of complex traits and the mechanisms of disease in mammals. I earned my PhD from the University of Rennes 1 and have held research positions at EMBL-EBI, the Earlham Institute, and GSK.

At EMBL-EBI and the Earlham Institute, I led large-scale genome sequencing projects and combined omics integration, systems biology, and machine learning to uncover insights into transcriptional regulation and the evolution of complex traits in mammals. At GSK, I applied this expertise to human genetics, integrating multi-omics data to better understand disease mechanisms and identify novel drug targets.

Currently, my research focuses on genomic foundation models. I lead the development of an automated framework for benchmarking and fine-tuning these models for applications such as variant effect prediction and genomic region annotation.

In parallel, I founded and currently chair the Rodent 2K consortium, an ambitious initiative to sequence all rodent species worldwide, affiliated with the Earth BioGenome Project.