This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine highlighted the importance of understanding the cells that protect the body from autoimmune diseases, emphasizing the transformative potential of single-cell research. Platforms that integrate and analyze such data are essential not only for fundamental research but also as a product for pharmaceutical R&D and for clinician-researchers driving translational studies.

Each year, scientists digitize millions of cells from the human body at unprecedented molecular and spatial resolution, generating datasets that capture genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and epigenetic features. These next-generation single-cell and multi-omics datasets can revolutionize biomedical research, drug development, and precision medicine. Yet, much of their potential remains untapped. Data are collected in disconnected silos, often using heterogeneous protocols, platforms, and formats. Analytical approaches usually focus on isolated aspects, such as a single omic layer or cell type, which limits cross-study comparability. Fully leveraging these resources would require continuous reanalysis of millions of datasets—an impractical task with conventional computational approaches. As a result, much of the actionable biological and clinical knowledge remains underutilized.

Malva is an IP-protected platform designed to overcome these limitations by making diverse datasets searchable, interoperable, and directly comparable. By harmonizing data across multiple repositories and experimental conditions, the current status is a working prototype integrating multiple public repositories, which was tested with scientists, clinicians, and industry partners.

Malva enables pharmaceutical teams, clinician-scientists, and translational researchers to interrogate data at full resolution and ask complex, integrative questions previously impractical. Analyses that once required weeks or months can now be performed in seconds, unlocking insights and accelerating drug discovery, target identification, and therapeutic development.

Using Malva, industry partners can uncover hidden patterns in genomic data across cancer and autoimmune disorders such as Lupus, multiple sclerosis, and more. By integrating previously isolated datasets and providing advanced analytical capabilities, malva empowers pharma and healthcare organizations to extract actionable knowledge, identify biomarkers, and optimize therapeutic strategies.

Ultimately, Malva aims to revolutionize healthcare by tracking and understanding human cells during disease. By enabling integrative analyses across public and private datasets, it accelerates innovation in therapeutics, diagnostics, and personalized medicine, turning complex cellular data into tangible industrial and clinical impact. The team comes from the world-renowned lab for Single-Cell Approaches for Personalized Medicine at the Max Delbrück Center, supported by clinical insights from BIH, Charité, and now Essen