Case Study: European Institute of Systems Biology and Medicine achieves faster data integration and discovery for translational medicine with Neo4j

European Institute for Systems Biology and Medicine - Customer Case Study

Irina Balaur, a postdoctoral researcher at the European Institute for Systems Biology and Medicine (EISBM), is working on the large European eTRIKS collaboration to build a knowledge management system for translational medicine. The team faced the challenge of managing heterogeneous, highly connected biomedical data and inferring new associations (for example linking biomarkers, drugs and diseases) in a way that clinicians could use.

They adopted Neo4j as the data management and integration platform, using built‑in and custom algorithms plus Cypher to model multi‑scale biological networks. Migration from a programmatically built database was fast, and the graph approach enabled practical tasks like exploring subnetworks and shortest metabolite pathways, producing faster insights and smoother collaboration across researchers; next steps include exporting results via JSON and building clinician‑facing interfaces.

European Institute of Systems Biology and Medicine

Irina Balaur

Postdoctoral Researcher