PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Marinka Žitnik

Also known as Marinka Zitnik

Marinka Žitnik is a computer scientist who develops AI methods for biomedical discovery and therapeutic design. She published NIMFA in 2012, earned a computer science PhD at the University of Ljubljana in 2015, completed postdoctoral work at Stanford, and joined Harvard Medical School in 2019. She coauthored Decagon, led Therapeutics Data Commons, and helped develop TxGNN and PDGrapher for drug discovery. She won the 2026 ISCB Overton Prize; as of October 2026, she is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and an associate member of Broad Institute.

Born
1989

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 2012

    NIMFA in Python

    In 2012, she and Blaž Zupan publish NIMFA, an open-source Python library with a unified interface to nonnegative matrix factorization algorithms.

  2. By 2015

    A computer science PhD

    In 2015, she earns a PhD in computer science from the University of Ljubljana. During college, she designs an algorithm to predict candidate genes in slime mold that activate antibacterial pathways.

  3. 2018

    Decagon at Stanford

    While a Stanford computer science postdoctoral fellow, she coauthors Decagon in 2018. The graph convolutional network uses molecular and patient data to predict side effects of drug combinations.

  4. December 2019

    Assistant professor at HMS

    She joins Harvard Medical School's Department of Biomedical Informatics as an assistant professor in December 2019. Her work targets biomedical discovery through machine learning and the fusion of molecular and clinical data.

  5. November 2022

    Therapeutics Data Commons

    In November 2022, she leads a multi-institutional team that launches Therapeutics Data Commons, an open-access platform for AI-driven drug discovery. It curates datasets and evaluates algorithms across treatment modalities and stages of drug development.

  6. 2024–2025

    TxGNN and PDGrapher

    In 2024, she coauthors TxGNN, a graph foundation model that predicts drug-repurposing candidates for diseases with limited treatment options and limited molecular data. In 2025, she coauthors PDGrapher, a graph neural network that identifies genes and combinations of targets that could restore diseased cells to healthy function.

  7. 2026

    The 2026 Overton Prize

    She wins the 2026 ISCB Overton Prize. At the 2026 ISMB keynote, she presents AI scientists that reason, hypothesize, and experiment alongside human researchers.

  8. As of October 2026

    Associate professor at HMS

    As of October 2026, she is an associate professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School, associate faculty at Kempner Institute, and associate member of Broad Institute. Her research develops AI foundations for scientific discovery and therapeutic design, and she leads the AI4Science initiative.

Career

  1. Since 2019Harvard Medical SchoolAssistant Professor
  2. NowHarvard UniversityAssociate Faculty
  3. NowBroad InstituteAssociate Member
  4. 2018Stanford UniversityComputer Science Postdoctoral Fellow

Education

  1. 2015University of LjubljanaPhD

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Harvard University. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Harvard University. 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. Companies supply the most prior-work hires at 7 of the 9 frontier AI labsIncludes Harvard University. Our estimates of the organizations where 550 people worked directly before joining 9 frontier AI labs across 620 career transitions, comparing the main feeder organizations per lab.
  4. 44% of AI career moves go from one university to anotherIncludes Harvard University. We estimate how 26,439 AI career moves link universities, companies, labs, nonprofits and government research centers, with decade counts, net flows and the top paths.

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 Marinka Žitnik yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Marinka Zitnik - MIT Rising Stars risingstars-eecs.mit.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. A Biomedical Researcher on AI's Promises and Pitfalls magazine.hms.harvard.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. NIMFA : A Python Library for Nonnegative Matrix Factorization jmlr.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. SNAP: Modeling Polypharmacy using Graph Convolutional Networks snap.stanford.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Welcome Marinka Zitnik | Department of Biomedical Informatics dbmi.hms.harvard.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Can AI transform the way we discover new drugs? | Department of Biomedical Informatics dbmi.hms.harvard.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. A Foundation Model for Clinician Centered Drug Repurposing zitniklab.hms.harvard.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. New AI tool predicts therapies to restore health in diseased cells news.harvard.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Distinguished Keynotes - ISMB 2026 iscb.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. Marinka Zitnik - Zitnik Lab zitniklab.hms.harvard.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.