Simon Kohl
Also known as Simon A. A. Kohl
Simon Kohl is an AI researcher and lab founder whose work spans ambiguous image segmentation and generative protein design. As a PhD student at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, he developed generative image models and co-authored the Probabilistic U-Net in 2018 and a hierarchical probabilistic U-Net in 2019. At DeepMind, he co-developed AlphaFold 2 and built its pLDDT uncertainty prediction, then co-led the protein design team. He left DeepMind in late 2022, incorporated Latent Labs in London in 2023, and launched the company in February 2025 with $50 million to build AI models for protein design. As of October 2026, he leads Latent Labs as founder and CEO, with work that includes Latent-Y, an AI agent for therapeutic antibody design.
- Now at
- Latent Labs
- Works
- 35
- Citations
- 50,523
- h-index
- 21
Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 15 October 2026.
Timeline
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2018–2019
Generative image models
As a PhD student at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, he develops generative models for biomedical image segmentation. In 2018, he co-authors the Probabilistic U-Net, which models distributions over plausible segmentations; in 2019, he co-authors a hierarchical probabilistic U-Net.
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2020–2021
AlphaFold 2 and pLDDT
At DeepMind, he co-develops AlphaFold 2 and builds its pLDDT uncertainty prediction. In 2020, he co-authors DeepMind’s high-accuracy protein structure prediction report; in 2021, he co-authors the Nature paper on AlphaFold.
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2022
Protein design at DeepMind
He co-leads DeepMind’s protein design team and sets up its wet lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London. In late 2022, he leaves DeepMind to build focused protein-design models.
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2023
Founding Latent Labs
By mid-2023, he incorporates Latent Labs in London to build frontier models for protein design.
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February 2025
A $50 million launch
In February 2025, he launches Latent Labs publicly with $50 million in funding to build AI foundation models for generating and optimizing proteins with biotech and pharmaceutical partners.
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March 2026
Launching Latent-Y
In March 2026, Latent Labs launches Latent-Y, an agent that designs therapeutic antibodies from text prompts. As CEO, Kohl describes its autonomous workflow; Latent-Y produces lab-validated results across three antibody campaigns.
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As of October 2026
Founder and CEO
He leads Latent Labs as founder and CEO. In May 2026, CVPR names him a keynote speaker for “Programmable Biology: Generative AI for Molecular Design.”
Sources and credits
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- Simon Kohl
- A Probabilistic U-Net for Segmentation of Ambiguous Images
- AlphaFold: a solution to a 50-year-old grand challenge in biology
- Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold
- Founded by DeepMind alumnus, Latent Labs launches with $50M to make biology programmable
- Latent Labs secures $50M in funding to realize the potential of AI-powered, programmable biology
- Latent Labs announces Latent-Y: The Autonomous AI Agent for Drug Design at Scale
- Latent Labs CEO, CTO of IBM, and Leading Computational Neuroscience and Computer Vision Researcher to Headline CVPR 2026