Jakob Nikolas Kather

Jakob Nikolas Kather is Hopp Foundation Professor of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine at Heidelberg University and founding director of IMAI at Heidelberg University Hospital. Board-certified in internal medicine, he develops AI for oncology and clinical applications. He remains affiliated with TU Dresden.

Since 1 October 2026, Professor Jakob Nikolas Kather has held the Hopp Foundation Professorship for “Artificial Intelligence in Medicine” at the Faculty of Medicine at Heidelberg University. He is founding director of the Institute for Medical AI (IMAI) at Heidelberg University Hospital and remains affiliated with TU Dresden. He is board-certified in internal medicine and holds a master’s degree in Medical Physics.

His research focuses on the development of artificial intelligence methods for clinical oncology, with an emphasis on AI-based biomarkers from histopathology, swarm learning, and autonomous clinical AI agents. He is the principal investigator of the ERC Starting Grant NADIR and leads research projects funded by the European Union, the German Cancer Aid, and the German Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR).

He has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and has received the Felix Burda Award, the Thannhauser Prize, and the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize.

Since 1 October 2026, Professor Jakob Nikolas Kather has held the Hopp Foundation Professorship for “Artificial Intelligence in Medicine” at the Faculty of Medicine at Heidelberg University. He is founding director of the Institute for Medical AI (IMAI) at Heidelberg University Hospital and remains affiliated with TU Dresden. He is board-certified in internal medicine and holds a master’s degree in Medical Physics.

He studied medicine in Heidelberg and Mannheim, where he completed his doctoral thesis summa cum laude on tumor angiogenesis, and obtained a Master of Science in Medical Physics. He held postdoctoral positions at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and a Junior Professorship at RWTH Aachen University before his appointment to the Chair of Clinical Artificial Intelligence at TU Dresden in 2022. He also served as a senior physician in oncology in Dresden and has led a research group in Medical Oncology at Heidelberg University Hospital since 2020.

His research program develops artificial intelligence for clinical oncology along three main directions: AI-based biomarkers from histopathology, including the demonstration of microsatellite instability prediction directly from H&E slides; swarm learning and explainable AI for distributed medical research; and autonomous AI agents for clinical workflows. He is the principal investigator of the ERC Starting Grant NADIR and leads grants from EU Horizon Europe, the German Cancer Aid, and the BMFTR.

He has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, including papers in Nature Medicine, Nature Cancer, and The Lancet, and is the author of the German textbook „KI in der Medizin“ (Springer). He serves as Co-Chair of the ESMO AI and Digital Oncology Committee, AI series editor at Annals of Oncology, deputy editor at npj Precision Oncology, and editorial consultant for The Lancet. He has received the Felix Burda Award (2025), the Thannhauser Prize (2022), the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize (2021), and the Theodor Frerichs Prize (2020).