Group Leader, ICB
Prof. Dr. Christian L. Müller
"I am an interdisciplinary scientist with expertise in Statistics, Computational Science, and Biology. My research focuses on developing rigorous statistical algorithms and workflows for analyzing high-throughput multimodal biological data."
Academic Career and Research Areas
Christian L. Müller’s academic trajectory is defined by a sustained effort to bridge computational methods and biological data analysis. He began his training in bioinformatics at the University of Tübingen, complemented by studies in computational mathematics at Uppsala University, establishing an early interdisciplinary foundation. This dual perspective matured during his Ph.D. at ETH Zürich, where he worked on black-box optimization methods and their application to biological systems.
His postdoctoral years at ETH Zürich and New York University marked a transition toward systems biology and applied mathematics, where he began focusing on statistical learning in biological contexts. This direction crystallized during his tenure at the Flatiron Institute (2014–2019), where he led projects within large collaborative efforts such as CBIOMES. There, he contributed to advancing microbiome data analysis through compositional data modeling, network estimation, and optimal transport methods—tools essential for understanding complex ecological and biological systems.
Since 2019, Müller has served as Group Leader at Helmholtz Munich and Professor of Statistics at LMU Munich, where he leads research at the intersection of statistics, machine learning, and computational biology. His work centers on extracting structure from high-dimensional biological data, particularly microbial, epigenetic, and single-cell datasets. Key contributions include the development of (microbial) network estimation, Bayesian and variational methods for compositional data, and optimal transport schemes. His recent research extends into biomedical applications, including antimicrobial discovery using learned molecular representations.
Beyond research, Müller has played an active role in shaping the field through teaching, mentorship, and community building, organizing workshops and training programs in computational biology, statistics, and optimization. His career reflects a consistent emphasis on methodological innovation driven by real-world biological questions, positioning him as an active contributor within modern data-driven life sciences.
Fields of Work and Expertise
Statistics
Optimization
Data Science
Open-Source Software
High-Throughput Sequencing
Single-Cell Sequencing
Flow Cytometry
Microbiome in Health and Disease
Professional Background
Group Leader, Computational Health Center, Helmholtz Munich, Germany Professor, Department of Statistics, LMU München, Germany, Visiting Scholar, Center for Computational Mathematics, Flatiron Institute, New York, USA
Interim Head, Helmholtz AI Consultants, Helmholtz Munich
Research Scientist / Project Leader, Flatiron Institute, Simons Foundation, New York, USA
Postdoctoral Researcher, ETH Zürich, Switzerland & NYU (Systems Biology & Courant Institute), New York, USA
Diploma, Bioinformatics, University of Tübingen, Germany; M.Sc., Computer Science, Uppsala University, Sweden; Ph.D., Computer Science, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Honors and Awards
- 2022 - 2025 Member of the StressRegNet consortium (https://bayresq.net/en/projekte-stressregnet-en/) as part of the Bavarian Research Network - New Strategies Against Multi-Resistant Pathogens by Means of Digital Networking (bayresq.net)
- 2017 - Member of the Simons Collaboration on Computational Biogeochemical Modeling of Marine Ecosystems (CBIOMES, cbiomes.org)
