Meet Ansgar Korf

Ansgar develops computational methods and open infrastructure for untargeted small-molecule mass spectrometry. Through MZmine, his team aims to reduce the time researchers spend navigating software and turn growing volumes of instrument data into scientific insight.

“What excites me most is a step most people find unglamorous,” he says. “Every year instruments get faster and their data more insightful, and every year the gap between measurement and interpretation grows.” MZmine provides a vendor-agnostic environment in which raw data can become structured and reusable. Building on this foundation, FAIR-MS is intended to make mass spectrometry data findable and reusable at the scale required for machine learning. “The models are finally good enough to use the data – if we can hand it over in a usable state.”

Ansgar believes untargeted measurement will become the default rather than the exception. “Untargeted data can be revisited years later to answer questions that did not exist at the time of acquisition,” he says. “That turns every dataset from a one-off deliverable into a lasting resource.” But he is wary of assuming AI can compensate for weaknesses elsewhere in an analytical workflow. “Scale is a good remedy for random error. It is no remedy at all for systematic error,” he says. “Poor data does not announce itself in a model’s output, and confident answers are harder to question than obviously unstable ones.”

Founding mzio in early 2024 was the most consequential decision of Ansgar’s career – but also a lesson in patience. The original idea emerged at the end of his PhD in 2020, before MZmine or the prospective founding team was ready. A subsequent role at Bruker Daltonics gave him experience of how a major instrument company operates. By 2023, MZmine 3 had been published, interest was growing, and Robin Schmid, Steffen Heuckeroth, and Tomáš Pluskal were ready to join him. “The lesson I took from it is that the founding team and the timing matter more than the concept, and neither can be forced.”

Away from work, Ansgar climbs and runs. “I climb for the challenge and the fun of solving a complex problem, and it is the one activity where I think about nothing else,” he says. “I run because I like to compete, and because a race result is not open to interpretation. Ideas I have been stuck on tend to arrive on a long run.”