Maria Franz

Biography

Maria Franz, PhD, is an ICSI-DAAD IFI Postdoctoral Researcher at ICSI, where she works in Dr. Benjamin Erichson’s group on applying deep learning approaches to drug discovery and pharmaceutical modeling. Her research sits at the intersection of biochemistry, computational modeling, and machine learning, with the goal of developing more accurate and scalable methods for understanding complex biological systems.

Dr. Franz studied Biochemistry at LMU Munich before completing her PhD in the pharmaceutical industry, where she focused on ODE-based pharmacokinetic modeling and simulation. Her doctoral work involved developing models to predict how drugs are absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and eliminated in the body, contributing to a deeper understanding of drug behavior in both preclinical and clinical contexts.

Through this work, she developed a strong interest in how data-driven approaches can complement traditional mechanistic models. Her current research explores how modern deep learning methods can enhance these models, enabling new insights and more efficient approaches to drug development.

At ICSI, Dr. Franz is part of a highly interdisciplinary and collaborative research environment, where she works alongside experts in machine learning and data science to bridge the gap between computational methods and real-world biomedical applications.

Areas of Expertise

• Planning, Decision-Making, and Intelligent Agents
• Human-AI Collaboration and Teaming
• Agentic AI (Autonomous AI Agents)
• AI in Healthcare, Biomedicine, and Life Sciences
• Digital Twins for Simulation, Prediction, and Optimization
• Computational Biology, Genomics, and Bioinformatics

ICSI Activity