Uniting top talents at the frontier of AI and Biology.
A selective fellowship for researchers, builders, and experimental minds shaping the next generation of genomics, drug discovery, and computational biology.
The Unaite Fellowship for AI in Biology is a highly selective, international research community operating under the Unaite umbrella, dedicated exclusively to the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Biology.
Founded in Paris in 2026 and designed to expand to London and Stanford, the Fellowship unites the most ambitious students, future researchers, and builders at this frontier, through rigorous peer selection, structured mentorship by world-class scientists, and a permanent alumni network spanning three continents.
Discover the program
Mentored by the best.
Jean-Baptiste Masson
Principal Investigator, Institut Pasteur & Inria
CSO, AVATAR MEDICAL
Jean-Baptiste Masson is a theoretical physicist and Principal Investigator at Institut Pasteur and Inria, leading the Decision and Bayesian Computation lab. His research combines statistical physics, Bayesian machine learning and biology to study biomolecule dynamics and biological decision-making. He is also the Chief Scientific Officer of AVATAR MEDICAL, a startup developing virtual reality tools for medical data visualization and surgery planning.
How it works.
A structured year of mentorship, projects and gatherings. Selection happens once per cohort; once you're in, you're in for life.
Apply
A short written application followed by a peer-led interview round.
Cohort
Twenty selected Fellows convene in Paris, mentor pairings, lab visits, first paper club.
Mentorship
1:1 sessions, monthly research clinics, hackathons, and a private Slack active around the clock.
Alumni
Alumni stay woven into selection, mentoring, and the events calendar across all hubs.
Applications open in spring
Join the next cohort.
We are looking for exceptional researchers, builders, and experimental minds at the frontier of AI and biology, wherever you are in your studies or career.
Questions.
The Fellowship is open to ambitious students, early-career researchers, and builders working at the frontier of AI and biology: experimental biologists, ML engineers, bioinformaticians, computational chemists, and physicists all belong. Admission is by application and is competitive and holistic: we look at scientific track record (relative to your stage), ambition and clarity of purpose, collaborative posture, and how you complement the cohort. Credentials matter less than the quality of your thinking. A serious, well-documented independent project can count as much as institutional affiliation. Acceptance stays below 20%.
Applications open once a year through a four-week call, announced via Unaite channels, lab mailing lists, and our chapter networks. For the inaugural Paris cohort, applications run from the 12th June, a meeting takes place halfway through the application cycle in June and the year begins with the Opening Ceremony in September.
No. Participation is free for Fellows. The Fellowship is funded by its sponsors and partners, who gain access to the community; this model will cover events, travel grants, and compute, so being a Fellow costs you nothing but your engagement. Events that do not fit in the budget will be revised in order to make the Fellowship sustainable.
The Fellowship will be international and span multiple chapters, starting in Paris, London and Stanford. Each chapter is anchored at one of the world's densest BioAI ecosystems. The Fellowship currently operates in Paris, with London and Stanford launching through 2028. Most activities happen in person within your chapter, while a shared workspace, newsletter, and mobility rights tie the chapters together: any Fellow visiting another chapter city is automatically welcomed at local events.
The commitment is real but designed to fit alongside full-time study or work. Fellows attend at least 70% of chapter events each semester, roughly monthly touchpoints such as paperclubs, informal gatherings, and mentor sessions, contribute to at least one collective initiative, and carry an independent research project across the year, culminating in a shareable output (preprint, code, write-up).
Membership is for life: “once a Fellow, always a Fellow”. On completing the year you become an Alumni Fellow with permanent access to the network across all three chapters; renew for a second year and you become a Senior Fellow, eligible to join the Admissions Committee. Alumni keep their mobility rights, introductions, and community ties. The long-term aim is for the Fellowship to carry the same CV signal as an EF fellowship or a Fulbright grant in the BioAI world.
English. The Fellowship is an international community, and its working language is English: events, paper clubs, mentor sessions, and written exchanges are conducted in English to make every Fellow, wherever they come from, part of one shared cohort. Applicants are expected to be fluent enough to take part fully and present their work. When everyone present speaks French, a session may naturally switch to French.
Selection happens once per cohort and is competitive. Acceptance stays below 20%, with cohorts capped at twenty Fellows. It starts with a short written application during a four-week open call; any current Fellow may also endorse a candidate. An Admissions Committee of Senior Fellows reviews every dossier and draws up a ranked shortlist, which the mentors then use for the final selection. Throughout, we weight scientific track record (relative to your stage), ambition and clarity of purpose, collaborative posture, and how you'd complement the cohort. Credentials matter less than the quality of your thinking. The mentors make the final call and shape a cohort in their image, but Fellows are never assigned to a single mentor afterward, mentorship stays open across the whole class.
No. The Fellowship is open whatever your stage or affiliation. Student, PhD, postdoc, researcher, or a builder with no institutional home at all. We believe research is a practice before it is a credential: a serious, well-documented independent research project can weigh as much as a degree. What we look for is the quality of your thinking, ambition, and your work. That said, being a student or PhD candidate aligns particularly well with what the Fellowship is built for, and is taken into account in selection.
Yes, applications are open internationally, and we actively want a geographically diverse cohort. The Fellowship is currently based in Paris, and experience is largely in person, built around chapter events and gatherings. So you should be able to take part on the ground in your chapter city on a regular basis. If you're moving to Paris, or already spend time there, you're welcome to apply.
No. You can come in with a direction you already want to pursue, or join and take ownership of a topic proposed by one of the mentors. What matters in applications is your ambition and how you think, not a finished plan. The project takes shape over the year, with mentorship and peer input along the way.
Yes. Selection is competitive and each cohort is small, so strong candidates aren't always placed on the first try. You're welcome to apply again in a future cycle, many profiles grow stronger between rounds, and a reapplication is read on its own merits.
Reach out to the Chapter Lead of the hub closest to you. Support can be financial or not. Compute, wet-lab access, workshops hosted at your site, time with your team, or any collaboration that moves a Fellow's work forward. The benefits we publish are a starting point; we design partnerships around genuine alignment, so come with your own ideas too.
Each year we recruit a small class of mentors, recognised figures in AI and biology, by invitation from the Steering Committee. If you'd like to be considered, get in touch through the contact page. We're always glad to meet people who want to support the next generation building at this frontier.
Yes, and we'd love that. The Fellowship exists because a few young, ambitious people met and simply started building it, and we want ambition to keep being our fuel. Beyond Paris, London and Stanford, we're open to new chapters wherever there's energy to start one. If you want to bring the Fellowship to your own country or city, you don't need a title or permission, reach out to us with the ambition and we'll help you make it happen.
Unaite is the community the Fellowship grows out of. It brings together some of the most driven students from France's leading engineering and business schools under one ambitious entity, and runs events such as Hackeurope. The Unaite Fellowship for AI in Biology is a focused, permanent vertical within Unaite, dedicated entirely to people building at the intersection of AI and life sciences.
Pioneers are founders, builders, and leading figures shaping the AI x Biology landscape in each hub who lend their name publicly to the Fellowship. They're not mentors, the ask is light by design. They show up at the annual flagship event, signal their support, and offer Fellows the occasional introduction or a short conversation. Their contribution is their signal as much as their time: a visible constellation of credible people, drawn from the strongest companies and labs at the frontier, who stand behind the next generation.