Dr. Willem Jespers is Assistant Professor in Computer-Aided Drug Discovery at the University of Groningen and Founder & Chief Scientific Officer of MODSIM Pharma. His work focuses on the development and application of computational methods, molecular simulations and artificial intelligence to better understand drug-target interactions and support the discovery of new therapeutic strategies.

Willem obtained his MSc in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences cum laude from Leiden University and completed his PhD in Computational Chemistry at Uppsala University. He subsequently worked as a computational chemist at Galapagos and as Assistant Professor at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research before joining the University of Groningen in 2025.

In his research, Willem combines physics-based modelling, machine learning, structural biology and pharmacology, with a particular focus on G protein-coupled receptors, G proteins and disease-associated mutations. He leads an interdisciplinary research group and supervises PhD students and postdoctoral researchers across national and international collaborations.

Alongside his academic work, Willem is actively involved in entrepreneurship, education and career development. Through his dual role in academia and biotech, he aims to bridge fundamental pharmaceutical research, computational innovation and real-world drug discovery.