Biography
Jonathan Hedley is a Novo Nordisk Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the lab of Prof. Philip Torr at Oxford University. His research focuses on adapting deep multi-modal generative models, typically used in text and image processing, to genomic data. The ultimate goal is to develop foundational and causal deep-phenotypic cellular models for reliably predicting cellular responses to genetic perturbations. These advancements are crucial for identifying new drug targets and guiding the exploration of genetic perturbations to uncover new biological insights.
He graduated with a first-class MSci degree in Chemistry with Molecular Physics from Imperial College London in 2020, where he received awards for Overall Outstanding Achievement and excellence in Computational Chemistry. His master's research explored mechanisms for sequence recognition in chromatin, specifically how sequence-specific nucleosome positioning may facilitate homologous recombination. After being awarded the President's PhD Scholarship at Imperial, he defended his PhD in Chemical Physics in 2024. His doctoral research examined how structured water influences the electrostatic environment surrounding dsDNA and enhances sequence recognition between homologous dsDNA molecules. This work also contributed to a new understanding of the role of water within the electrochemical double layer.
Research Interests
- AI for Drug Discovery
- Soft Condensed Matter Physics
- Electrochemistry
- Statistical Physics
Research Projects
Navigating the genetic perturbation landscape: Multi-modal causal representation learning for target discovery. Summary: Using multi-modal machine learning to predict cellular responses to genetic perturbations.
