Dr Konrad Rawlik: embracing challenges

 

Born in Poland, raised in Germany, and now residing in Scotland’s capital city, Konrad Rawlik is a globally-focused figure who is part of a team that is radically disrupting how human genetics can benefit society.

He came to the University of Edinburgh as an undergraduate student nearly 20 years ago and, with the exception of a brief posting in Berlin, has made the Scottish capital his home since then. “I did not expect to be in Edinburgh for so long as most people in academia move around but I have been lucky in how my career has progressed here within the University. Along with the work I’ve been involved in, remaining here in Edinburgh has been great for me. I enjoy living in Scotland and have not had to uproot my family.”

As someone whose studies have encompassed a broad range of sciences, Konrad has never been afraid of embracing a new challenge. His journey which has taken him from an undergraduate student to his current role as a Research Fellow has been led by a probing mind and an ability to apply his academic abilities to embrace emerging developments. 

Rolling back to his school days, Konrad was clearly a bright young lad but he admits he wasn’t always particularly attentive in his lessons. “With the benefit of hindsight, I would struggle to describe myself as a focused student,” he says, “although I was a good student.”

“I was always quite good at sciences, history and literature but, ironically, I was not particularly great at languages which were always dragging me down. I think my issue was that, unlike maths and some other subjects with an easier-to-follow structure, languages didn’t come as naturally to me.”

Konrad did eventually apply himself to overcoming that learning barrier and he has now developed a knack for languages, speaking English with a seemingly easy fluency as well as being fully conversant in German and Polish and semi-fluent in a few others. It was a fortunate outcome for someone who was destined to a somewhat nomadic life, which started when he moved from Poland to Lower Saxony, Germany with his family at a young age.

After adapting to life as an adolescent in Germany, Konrad completed high school before opting to travel to Scotland in 2003 where he attended the University of Edinburgh for his undergraduate degree. In another somehow ironic twist, his first area of study was in mathematics and AI, well removed from his current field of human genetics.

It was when he was studying for a PhD in neuro-informatics that he began to unintentionally evolve towards genome-related research. “As part of my PhD I was required to do a masters by research,” he says. “Rather than doing computational research, I wanted to do something different so I decided to do a wet lab project which I really enjoyed.”

After his PhD, when Konrad was seeking a post-doctoral position, an opportunity in human genetics became available at the University’s Roslin Institute in 2013. “After the wet lab experience during my masters, I was attracted to this position. I also wanted to try something new and biology sounded like an interesting field.”      

Konrad embraced the new role enjoying the variety that comes with his biologically-focused research work at the Roslin Institute. It was during this time when the UK Biobank, at the time the world’s largest and most comprehensive genetic data set, was made available which would lead to the development of Omecu, a company he co-founded with Dr Oriol Canela-Xandri, at the MRC Human Genetics Unit, within the University’s Institute of Genetics and Cancer, and Les Gaw an experienced entrepreneur, investor and adviser to early-stage technology companies.

“Once the biobank became available, we were able to run analysis on a large number of diseases and other health traits and make these publicly available,” says Konrad.  

Konrad and his colleagues soon realised that this genetic analysis of specific factors such as blood pressure and BMI could be put to effective use in helping experts who are studying a particular disease.

Omecu grew out of the idea of how we can facilitate those people who have really detailed knowledge of specific diseases using our ability to deliver detailed data analysis for them.

The real benefit of Omecu is that it aims to democratise genetic data access and cut, from days to seconds, the time it takes to analyse millions of genetic records. The company, which was supported by Edinburgh Innovations, the University’s commercialisation service, also promises wide-ranging benefits in drug discovery and personalised medicine, while improving patient data security.

It is estimated that global human genomic data is doubling in size every seven months and may soon exceed other big data generators such as astronomy and the internet. Although this data has the potential to revolutionise medicine and lead to new therapeutics and diagnostics, these benefits rely on the ability to unlock clinically actionable knowledge from the data. The obstacles to accessing such data can prevent valuable information from being extracted, by making the process very costly and time-consuming.

As a key figure within the Omecu team, Konrad has contributed to the development of a computation engine and web platform that is transforming how genomic data is securely accessed and efficiently analysed. Using a set of specially designed algorithms, the platform has made it possible to access this data at speed.

Our initial analysis of the UK Biobank covered 800 diseases and traits with each one of these taking roughly a day to complete. Through our computation engine we have cut this down significantly to the point where we can now access key results interactively.

Omecu has been recognised by a number of bodies including Innovate UK which awarded the company £288,000 to enable it to refine its prototype and progress commercial engagement.

The company’s ambition is to create a paradigm shift where disease experts without a computer science background are able to easily query fragmented data sets. Not only will the speed of analysis be significantly reduced, but the cost of undertaking this analysis through significantly reduced processing costs will also reduce costs of the analysis.

The impact of this innovation is far-reaching. It can increase productivity of clinicians and researchers which in turn increases the efficiency of drug development. The speed and manner in which Omecu can source genome data can also improve academic research in genetics, helping increase understanding of the most current health challenges including how COVID-19 impacts on certain groups of people differently.

The company empowers medical research organisations to control their data and, through its use of significantly more efficient computing algorithms, it also provides a lower carbon solution by reducing the carbon footprint associated with large data centres. 

“Omecu’s progress has been on the back of close teamwork,” says Konrad. “Oriol and I have worked together for eight years where he has been at the forefront of most of the physical work within the company. Along with Les, he has also been closely involved in the commercialisation process which has helped us secure grant funding to move things to the next level.” 

Omecu has also been supported by the Wellcome iTPA programme and has received Medical Research Council grants as well as funding from the University of Edinburgh’s Data-Driven Entrepreneurship Seed Fund and Fast Track Mentor initiatives, supported by the Scottish Funding Council, all further underlining the value of both its societal and commercial potential.  

These recent funding awards are enabling the company to accelerate the development of its prototype and move towards a commercial product.

“We help the right people with the right skills to improve public health through Omecu’s enabling technology,” says Konrad.

In terms of what drives him in his work, Konrad says he loves the ongoing discovery process that comes with every new challenge, especially when this has wider benefits for humanity. A recent example is his involvement in the efforts to understand the genetics behind severe Covid-19.

It was not only fascinating in terms of learning, but it was also very satisfying to see that many of the things we discovered had practical applications. This included finding candidate treatments for Covid based on genetic information, which could be fast-tracked to trials to cut down the time to identify effective treatments.

Outside of his work as a Research Fellow at the University’s Roslin Institute, Konrad is a keen hill runner, a passion he shares with his wife, and he enjoys spending family time with his two young children.  

While his academic career has taken him on a journey he might never have anticipated back in his school days, Konrad has retained some of those early years’ interests. “I have kept my longstanding interest in history and I also continue to enjoy literature whenever possible,” he admits.