Pedro Ballester

Dr. Pedro Ballester is a Senior Lecturer and Royal Society Wolfson Fellow at Imperial College London's Department of Bioengineering, part of the Faculty of Engineering. His research focuses on developing computational methods to accelerate drug discovery and precision oncology, leveraging AI, big data, and domain expertise. He leads a multidisciplinary group applying machine learning to predict drug responses, identify novel therapeutics, and combat antimicrobial resistance.

Education: PhD in Geophysical Data Mining (Imperial College), MSc in Information Processing & Neural Networks, Astrophysics degree. Previous roles include INSERM Group Leader in France (2014-2022) and postdoctoral positions at EMBL-EBI and Cambridge University.

Research Interests:

• Machine learning for structure-based and ligand-based virtual screening
• Predictive models for cancer drug response using multi-omics data
• AI-driven antimicrobial discovery
• Benchmarking computational methods in drug design

Awards: Over £2.8M in grants as PI, including Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship (2022-27) and multiple French research awards. Editorial roles at npj Precision Oncology and Briefings in Bioinformatics.

Teaching: Leads modules on AI in Drug Discovery and Mathematics for Bioengineering students. Supervises PhD/MSc students in computational methods and drug design.

Lab Activities: Active collaborations with clinicians and industry partners. Group members work on projects like prospective virtual screening campaigns and AI-driven precision oncology models.