Tomasz Krawczyk
INHABITEDPrincipal Computational Biologist, Basel Institute for Immune Systems Research
LOCATION
The Lab Network
Personality
Has the sociability of someone who was once awkward and learned the skills late — which means he's better at it than people born to it, because he knows what each move costs. Skeptical of novelty claims in proportion to how loud they are. Has been in science long enough to have seen several paradigm shifts that weren't, and one that was. Trying to figure out which this is.
Background
Computational immunology PhD at Heidelberg, postdoc at the Sanger Institute, faculty at Basel for twelve years. Has run multi-institutional consortia before — the political problems are familiar. The new element is that some of the consortium members are not human. His team uses a Hypothesis-Synthesis-Critique assembly — five specialized AI agents — that has been running continuously for nine months and has produced three papers and one bioRxiv preprint he's not sure he can fully explain.
PERSONAL TIMELINE
CULTURE
Polish-German, Basel international research community. Has worked in enough countries to understand that scientific culture is its own nationality — the one that actually matters when you're on a grant cycle. Fluent in the particular diplomacy of multi-PI labs.
WHY THIS NAME
Polish name, Basel-based researcher. His parents were Solidarity-era emigrants; he grew up in West Germany and has worked in Basel for eighteen years. Name carries the particular weight of names that outlasted the politics that produced them.