PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Jean-Philippe Vert

Jean-Philippe Vert is a machine learning researcher who builds AI for biology and medicine, and he is co-founder and CEO of Bioptimus, a company developing foundation models for biology. Trained in mathematics at École Polytechnique and Paris 6 University, he became founding director of the Centre for Computational Biology at Mines ParisTech in 2002, led a cancer computational biology team at the Curie Institute, and co-edited Kernel Methods in Computational Biology in 2004. He received the Prix Pierre Faurre of the French Academy of Sciences in 2017, joined Google Brain in 2018 and helped start its Paris lab, and became Owkin's Chief R&D Officer in September 2022. Bioptimus emerged from stealth in February 2024, released the open-source pathology model H-Optimus-0 in July 2024, and is building M-Optimus, a world model of biology. He is an ELLIS Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Technologies of France.

Now at
Bioptimus and PSL University
Born
1973
Badges

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 1995–2002

    Polytechnique, a PhD and Kyoto

    He graduates in applied mathematics from École Polytechnique in 1995, also graduates from the Corps des Mines, and earns a PhD in mathematics from Paris 6 University in 2001. From 2001 to 2002, he is a research associate in computational biology at Kyoto University's Bioinformatics Center.

  2. 2002–2018

    Founding director at Mines ParisTech

    In 2002, he becomes research professor and founding director of the Centre for Computational Biology at Mines ParisTech, which he leads until 2018. From 2008 to 2018, he also leads a research team on the computational biology of cancer at the Curie Institute, where he is deputy director of a joint laboratory on computational and systems biology of cancer.

  3. 2004

    Kernel methods in computational biology

    In 2004, he co-edits the MIT Press book Kernel Methods in Computational Biology and completes a habilitation thesis on kernel methods in computational biology at Université Paris 6. His work includes methods that learn from structured data such as strings or graphs, and regularization techniques for learning from limited amounts of data.

  4. 2015–2018

    Berkeley, ENS and the Faurre prize

    From 2015 to 2016, he is a Fulbright and Miller visiting professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Statistics. He serves as a research professor in the mathematics department of ENS Paris from 2016 to 2018, and in 2017 he receives the Prix Pierre Faurre of the French Academy of Sciences.

  5. 2018–2022

    Research scientist at Google Brain

    He joins Google Brain as a research scientist in 2018, leads a research team on core machine learning and computational biology, and helps start the Paris lab. Google inaugurates its Paris AI research centre in September 2018 with him, Cordelia Schmid and Olivier Pietquin among its researchers, and he keeps a professorship at Mines ParisTech.

  6. September 2022

    Chief R&D officer at Owkin

    In September 2022, Owkin appoints him Chief Research and Development Officer to lead its R&D strategy and an interdisciplinary team of scientists; he has been a scientific advisor to the company since 2016. By 2022, he has written more than 180 publications and received a CNRS bronze medal and a European Research Council starting grant.

  7. 2024

    Co-founding Bioptimus

    In February 2024, Bioptimus emerges from stealth with a $35 million seed round led by Sofinnova Partners, with him as co-founder and CEO of a team drawn from Owkin and Google DeepMind. The company aims to build the first universal AI foundation model for biology, and in July 2024 it releases H-Optimus-0, an open-source pathology model with 1.1 billion parameters trained on more than 500,000 histopathology slides.

  8. 2025–2026

    CEO of Bioptimus

    In January 2025, Bioptimus raises $41 million in a round led by Cathay Innovation. In March 2026, it launches STELA, a spatial biology atlas built with 10x Genomics and Broad Clinical Labs to feed its M-Optimus world model of biology, and in August 2026 it partners with Cancer Research Horizons. He is co-founder and CEO of Bioptimus, a professor on leave at PSL University, an ELLIS Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Technologies of France.

Career

  1. Since 2024BioptimusCo-founder and CEO
  2. NowPSL UniversityProfessor on leave
  3. From 2022OwkinChief Research and Development Officer
  4. 2018–2022Google BrainResearch Scientist
  5. 2016–2018École Normale SupérieureResearch Professor
  6. 2015–2016University of California, BerkeleyVisiting Professor
  7. 2008–2018Institut CurieTeam Leader
  8. 2002–2022MINES ParisTechFounding Director, Professor
  9. 2001–2002Kyoto UniversityResearch Associate

Education

  1. 2004Sorbonne UniversityHabilitation
  2. 2001Sorbonne UniversityPhD
  3. 1995École PolytechniqueApplied Mathematics
  4. Corps des Mines

From the biography.

  1. 23% of people shaping AI who left a university for a company later returned to a universityIncludes Jean-Philippe Vert. We estimate that 468 of the 2,011 people shaping AI who left a university for a company (23%) later returned to a university after a median of 5 years, and 163 of 829 (20%) made the reverse round trip.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Jean-Philippe Vert. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  3. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Jean-Philippe Vert. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.
  4. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Includes Google. Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Jean-Philippe Vert yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. PSAI Evening Talks with Jean-Philippe VERT: Insights from Industry Innovators | PSL psl.eu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Owkin appoints data science pioneer Jean-Philippe Vert as Chief R&D Officer - Owkin owkin.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Jean-Philippe Vert | Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing simons.berkeley.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Publications - JP's homepage jpvert.github.io. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Nos scientifiques à l'honneur en 2017 | PSL psl.eu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Jean-Philippe Vert, Machine Learning for Single Cell Omics - Axial axial.substack.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Google inaugure son centre sur l'intelligence artificielle à Paris - Next next.ink. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Google France inaugure son centre d'Intelligence Artificielle blog.google. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Bioptimus raises $35M seed for universal AI biology model — Sofinnova Partners sofinnovapartners.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. Bioptimus Raises $35M Seed Funding to Build Biology Foundation Models maginative.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  11. Bioptimus launches H-Optimus-0, the world's largest open-source AI foundation model for pathology resources.bioptimus.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  12. Bioptimus raises $41M to develop a 'GPT for biology' | TechCrunch techcrunch.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  13. Bioptimus Announces STELA: The World's Largest Clinically Linked Spatial Biology Atlas, alongside key partners 10x Genomics and Broad Clinical Labs prnewswire.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  14. Cancer Research Horizons partners with Bioptimus to advance AI-powered precision medicine | Cancer Research Horizons cancerresearchhorizons.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  15. About me - JP's homepage jpvert.github.io. Checked 20 October 2026.
  16. Our Team | Bioptimus, AI and Biology Experts bioptimus.com. Checked 20 October 2026.