Ishanu Chattopadhyay, PhD
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Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics
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Director, Zero Knowledge Discovery Laboratory (ZedLab)
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About Ishanu Chattopadhyay, PhD
Ishanu Chattopadhyay, PhD, is an assistant professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and directs the Zero Knowledge Discovery Laboratory. His research develops foundation models for complex systems: mathematical and computational methods that learn predictive structure, dependencies, and dynamics directly from observational data when governing mechanisms are unknown or only partly specified. The same framework supports data-driven digital twins across medicine, biology, evolution, and society. Current work includes passive, zero-burden screening for complex diseases from routine electronic health records; digital twins of microbiomes and viral evolution; population and pandemic forecasting; models of opinion dynamics and rare events; and theoretical measures of intelligence. Across these areas, the goal is to build interpretable, scalable AI systems that reconstruct missing information, forecast change, test counterfactual perturbations, and translate large, heterogeneous datasets into actionable scientific and clinical insight.
Research
Main research projects:
- Large Science Models (LSMs): foundation models for high-dimensional, evolving, and reflexive complex systems; current DARPA-supported application to population belief and opinion dynamics.
- ZeBRA / zero-burden clinical risk assessment: passive early screening from routine longitudinal EHR and claims histories, with disease programs spanning ADRD, ILD/IPF, autism, cardiometabolic disease, and suicide risk.
- Emergenet: a sequence-based digital twin of influenza evolution for vaccine-strain forecasting and scalable emergence-risk assessment.
- Biological digital twins: data-driven models of microbiome organization, maturation, succession, and links to later outcomes.
Funding sources and research support:
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA): active Large Science Models project led by Chattopadhyay as principal investigator.
- National Institutes of Health and Alzheimer’s Association: support acknowledged for recent ADRD screening research.