Fraunhofer expert calls for new scientific field of autonomics, sees path to cheaper personalized medicine
Peter Liggesmeyer, head of Fraunhofer IESE, says a systematic field of autonomics could slash the cost of individualized drugs and give Europe an economic edge.
A new scientific field
Peter Liggesmeyer, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE) in Kaiserslautern, wants Germany and Europe to treat autonomics as a distinct scientific discipline rather than a patchwork of separate projects. Speaking to the German Press Agency, he said current research is too fragmented despite the field's potential.
Fundamental questions should be answered once and then adapted for individual applications.
Cheaper personalized medicine
Liggesmeyer cited individualized drug manufacturing as an area where autonomics could bring dramatic cost reductions. Today such drugs are scarce because manual production makes them prohibitively expensive. He estimated that automation could cut the price from around a quarter of a million euros to 25,000 euros, making them accessible to far more patients.
- Without automation
- 250000 €
- With automation
- 25000 €
Safety corridors and long-term autonomy
Unlike conventional software, which is programmed once and then certified, autonomous systems must be allowed to evolve while staying within safe boundaries.
These corridors are highly application-specific, he added, and the long-term challenge is to design systems that can cope with new conditions while undergoing continuous safety checks.For each, a corridor must be found that a system must not leave, without otherwise restricting autonomy.
Working group and political signal
Liggesmeyer leads a roughly 20‑person working group that includes physicist and former SAP board member Henning Kagermann and AI expert Wolfgang Wahlster.
Many sectors, he said, are moving toward complete automation where tasks are too complex, time‑consuming, or expensive for humans.It would be good if politicians recognized that this is a smart direction.
AI hype and the Vatican
Artificial intelligence is just one tool in autonomics, Liggesmeyer noted, but the current hype helps because it shows that new technologies create new possibilities. That public attention now reaches the highest levels: Pope Leo XIV used his first encyclical to call for strict international guidelines on AI, warning about dangers such as AI‑driven warfare while also acknowledging the technology’s valuable assistance.
