Charles Nicklas Christensen

Charles Nicklas Christensen

PhD, AI researcher
Agents & LLMs for drug discovery

University of Cambridge

Biography

Charles Nicklas Christensen is an AI/ML research scientist at GSK, focusing on foundational AI and agentic LLM research for drug discovery. His work includes developing new agentic workflows for drug discovery, e.g. for GSK’s AI system Jules , and accelerating inference pipelines for LLMs.

Previously, he was a ML research scientist at Oxford Nanoimaging, ONI , where he architected and productionised deep learning methods for spectral demixing, image segmentation, and super-resolution reconstruction.

Charles has a background in physics and holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, where his research centered on deep learning-based methods development, e.g. ML-SIM and ERnet , for optical microscopy and live-cell bio-imaging [Science Advances (2020) , Biomed. Opt. Express (2021) , Nature Comms. (2022) , Nature Methods (2023) ].

Download Charles Christensen’s CV.

Interests
  • Agents & LLMs
  • Drug discovery
  • Reinforcement learning
  • Non-linear physics
  • Bio-imaging
Education
  • PhD in Computational Biology, 2022

    University of Cambridge

  • MRes in Image Processing and Sensing, 2018

    University of Cambridge

  • MSc in Applied Mathematics, 2017

    Technical University of Denmark

  • BSc in Physics, 2015

    Technical University of Denmark

Experience

 
 
 
 
 
AI/ML Research Scientist
GSK
Oct 2023 – Present London, UK

Research on drug discovery using LLMs and agentic workflows.

  • Multi-agent reasoning and orchestration (cf. emerging “Deep Research” type of inference).
  • Contributed to GSK’s GenAI system, Jules
  • Acceleration of multi-node inference for LLMs pre-trained in-house, focusing on parallelisation and constrained decoding for agentic use.
  • Drug discovery
  • Multi-agent systems
  • LLM research
  • LangGraph
 
 
 
 
 
ML Research Scientist
Oxford Nanoimaging, ONI
Apr 2022 – Oct 2023 Oxford, UK
Developed and deployed deep learning methods for spectral demixing, image segmentation, and super-resolution towards new product offerings. This involved R&D and MLOps. In addition to this, I have also contributed to a web-based acquisition and analysis software which involves several technologies spanning front-end, back-end and deployment.
  • Python
  • C++
  • Image processing
  • Deep learning
  • Pytorch
  • CNNs
 
 
 
 
 
Co-founder & CTO
Wizion AI
Oct 2019 – Sep 2022 Cambridge, UK
Together with a colleague from my research group, I co-founded Wizion AI, a company offering image processing products utilising deep learning methods inspired by research in our lab. In 2020, we were selected for the Cambridge Accelerate accelerator programme at the Judge Business School. After three years of efforts towards the development of two products, we decided to shift our focus to other opportunities.
  • Pre-training vision transformers
  • Image processing and CV
  • MLOps
 
 
 
 
 
Co-founder
Open-seneca
Jun 2018 – Present Cambridge, UK

Part-time involvement in non-profit organisation. Started as a research project during master’s degree and spun out in 2019 with five fellow PhD students.

  • Open-source hardware design of air quality monitor.
  • Aggregate data analysis and predictive modelling.
  • Deployment of sensor networks in several countries across South America, Africa, Europe and Asia. More information https://open-seneca.org
  • Big data
  • Data visualisation
  • Machine learning
  • Databases and data pipelines
 
 
 
 
 
Computer Vision Research Scientist
Tesco Technology
Jul 2021 – Oct 2021 London, UK
Within the Tesco Data Science department, I worked with the computer vision team on large-scale image classification for product recognition at the till to prevent theft.
  • Metric learning
  • Transformers
  • Pytorch
  • TensorRT
 
 
 
 
 
Research Associate
Physical Computation Lab
Jul 2018 – Jan 2019 Department of Engineering, Cambridge University, UK
I worked with Professor Phillip Stanley-Marbell, head of the Physical Computation Lab. In the research project, I modelled lightness illusions in the human visual system by attempting to reproduce them with artificial neural networks.
 
 
 
 
 
Research Assistant
Danish Fundamental Metrology
May 2017 – Aug 2017 Lyngby, Denmark
Researched and developed a machine learning system for a novel laser based fire detector. This involved optical engineering and signal processing using machine learning techniques.
  • Signal processing
  • Time-series classification
  • Support vector machines
 
 
 
 
 
Data Consultant
VisionTrace
Sep 2017 – Dec 2016 Lyngby, Denmark

Alongside my MSc studies, I worked part-time on a number of consultant jobs including:

  • Developed a system for image analysis of a continuous video feed at a production facility overseen by food industry technology provider GEA.
  • Performed data mining on a big dataset for Danish television broadcaster TV2 with results used in a program about fitness level.
  • Video tracking
  • Data mining
 
 
 
 
 
Research Assistant
Department of Photonics Engineering
Sep 2017 – Jul 2017 Technical University of Denmark
Further researched the topic of my BSc thesis and wrote it up as a publication.
  • Markov processes
  • Quantum mechanics
  • Algebraic computation
  • Mathematica

Publications

(2023). ERnet: a tool for the semantic segmentation and quantitative analysis of endoplasmic reticulum topology. In Nature Methods.

PDF Cite DOI GitHub

(2022). MAI-SIM: interferometric multicolor structured illumination microscopy for everybody. In Nature Communications.

PDF Cite DOI GitHub

(2022). Spatio-temporal Vision Transformer for Super-resolution Microscopy. On arXiv.

PDF Cite DOI GitHub

(2021). ML-SIM : Universal reconstruction of structured illumination microscopy images using transfer learning. In Biomedical Optics Express.

PDF Cite DOI GitHub

(2021). Simple and robust speckle detection method for fire and heat detection in harsh environments. In Applied Optics.

PDF Cite DOI

Academic Projects

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