From Student to Scientist to Entrepreneur – The Inspiring Journey of Julius Balkenhol

Our 6th-year student Julius Balkenhol has just achieved an extraordinary milestone — his first publication as first author, published in the European Journal of Cancer.
The study, titled “Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma 1986–2019 in Germany: Incidence, anatomical site, staging, and histologic subtypes,” sheds light on an important topic in dermatologic oncology:

https://www.ejcancer.com/article/S0959-8049(25)00954-2/fulltext

But Julius’s journey goes far beyond research:

Everything started with projects in dermatopathology and deep learning, where he and his collaborators — Centroderm, NeraCare, and the University of Wuppertal — developed models predicting the survival of melanoma patients solely from H&E-stained slides. Later, in cooperation with Centroderm and the University of Bremen, he worked on using AI to diagnose and classify skin diseases from microscopic biopsy images.

During his time as a working student in an AI company, Julius experienced the major challenges of digitization in pathology firsthand. Instead of merely observing these issues, he decided to act. Together with his co-founder Sören Wierzba, who studied economics, he established Beratung Digitale Pathologie (BDP) oHG — a consulting company dedicated to improving digital pathology workflows.
Their clients include pathology laboratories, major clinical groups, and software developers.

Today, Julius and his team — which includes a master’s in mathematics, a master’s in bioinformatics, a PhD in medical image segmentation, and eight students from UMFST-UMCH and other universities — are developing innovative projects that will be publicly released soon.

On December 3, Julius will share his story at Reach Higher – Student Edition, titled:
💬 “From study bench to research to business – Why any of those matter.”

We’re truly proud of Julius — a brilliant example of how curiosity, courage, and creativity can shape an international medical careeralready during one’s studies. 🌍👏