Northwestern Launches New Center for Collaborative AI in Healthcare

"We are excited to announce the inaugural Center for Collaborative AI in Healthcare. Not only should scientists and clinicians collaborate with each other, we should also treat AI and ML as colleagues."

Yuan Luo, PhD, Chief AI Officer and Associate Professor, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

This week the Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine announced the launch of the Center for Collaborative AI in Healthcare . The Center's mission is to improve precision medicine by advancing AI science, engineering and translation across healthcare specialties. The new center plans to democratize access to AI infrastructure and training resources and engage new people previously facing AI and machine learning barriers including clinicians, hospital administrators, trainees and basic scientists both inside and outside the Feinberg School of Medicine.

Enabling AI as a Collaborator

The Center for Collaborative AI in Healthcare plans to enable AI as a collaborator and serve as a university-wide hub for research, strategic infrastructure and training in collaborative AI. The Center will provide assistance to clinicians, hospital administrators and basic scientists in applying AI methods to their research and clinical practice. A key focus of the center will be hosting research, infrastructure, training and collaborative activities for investigators throughout Northwestern. These activities include developing comprehensive AI and machine learning models and resources that integrate multiple modalities of healthcare data; building flagship and strategic datasets that integrate both phenotypic and multi-omic data modalities; providing mentoring, training and educational opportunities; and supporting the integration of data assets from other Feinberg centers.

“There is a major unmet need for enabling a multidisciplinary workforce that interacts synergistically in the dynamic healthcare landscape. We aim to provide fertile ground for cross-pollinating next-generation clinicians and scientists to bring AI in healthcare to fruition."

Yuan Luo, PhD, Chief AI Officer and Associate Professor, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Yuan Luo, PhD.

The new center will be led by?Yuan Luo, PhD. Dr. Luo is Chief AI Officer and an Associate Professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He is an established researcher and thought leader in biomedical machine learning, natural language processing, time series analysis, computational phenotyping, and integrative multi-omic analysis. He has demonstrated records of leading and managing AI/ML research and development projects with multimillion dollar budgets. Dr. Luo is passionate about about equitable, practical, scalable AI for biomedicine and healthcare.

Dr. Luo is associate professor of?Preventive Medicine, of?Pediatrics?and at the McCormick School of Engineering, and Chief AI officer at the Northwestern Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute and the?Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine. He oversees AI development for a $46 million grant portfolio on translational research, and he directly manages a separate $5 million grant portfolio on building state-of-the-art machine learning infrastructure for healthcare. Dr. Luo's research interests include machine learning, natural language processing, time series analysis, integrative genomic analysis and big data analytics, with a focus on medical and clinical applications.

Prof. Luo has a PhD in Computer Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is editor with JBI, Plos One and JAMIA Open and associate editor for JHIR. He is co-chair of eMERGE NLP WG. On AMIA Membership and Outreach Committee, and Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute Research/Innovation and Education Committee. He is program Chair, Area Chair or Program Committee Member for top AI and informatics conferences.

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Copyright ? 2022 Margaretta Colangelo. All Rights Reserved.

This article was written by Margaretta Colangelo. Margaretta is a leading AI analyst who tracks significant milestones in AI in healthcare. She consults with AI healthcare companies and writes about some of the companies she consults with. Margaretta serves on the advisory board of the AI Precision Health Institute at the University of Hawai?i?Cancer Center @realmargaretta