Artificial intelligence (AI) catapulted into the public consciousness in 2023 with the introduction of ChatGPT, a form of generative AI that astounded the public with its ability to churn out Shakespearean-style sonnets and surrealistic visuals in a matter of seconds. While much of the media attention surrounding AI has focused on these parlor tricks, its ability to accelerate biomedical research cannot be overstated.
AI’s impact is already being felt at UT Southwestern Medical Center, where the technology is propelling research discoveries forward in laboratories, clinics, and classrooms across campus.
In 2021, UTSW researchers used artificial intelligence and deep machine learning to analyze 1.7 million raw images of patient-derived tumor samples, pinpointing a key distinction between skin cancer cells with high and low potential to metastasize – a discovery that could ultimately mean the difference between life or death for patients with melanoma.
With AI assisting, UTSW physician-scientists are zeroing in on the most effective medications for depression, predicting insulin resistance in Type 2 diabetes, and grading medical students on simulated encounters with patients. AI is also playing a vital role in advancing personalized radiotherapy and cancer treatments as well as putting complex and costly genetic research well within reach.
“Medicine is one of the fastest-growing areas of AI research, and its effects could be life-changing,” said Gaudenz Danuser, Ph.D., Chair and Professor in the Lyda Hill Department of Bioinformatics and Professor of Cell Biology, who led the study on metastatic skin cancer.
AI is broadly defined as technology that autonomously reasons within machines and thus can come up with insights alternative to human thinking. But what individual researchers consider “true AI” can vary from algorithms trained to perform sophisticated pattern recognition to programs that mimic the neural wiring of human brains, said Steve Jiang, Ph.D., Professor, Vice Chair for Digital Health and AI, and Chief of the Division of Medical Physics and Engineering in the Department of Radiology Oncology at UTSW. Dr. Jiang is also Director of the Medical Artificial Intelligence and Automation (MAIA) Lab.
“I have no doubt,” Dr. Jiang said, “AI in health care will impact millions of lives.”
On the institutional level, UT Southwestern is involved in state and national efforts to establish best practices for the application of artificial intelligence in health care.
In March 2024, UT Southwestern joined more than a dozen of the country’s top academic medical centers and Microsoft to form the Trustworthy & Responsible AI Network (TRAIN), a consortium designed to set quality and safety standards for the use of AI in health care and explore frameworks for collaboration and knowledge sharing.
And in May 2024, UTSW hosted the inaugural UT System AI Symposium in Health Care, which brought to campus more than 700 scientists, clinicians, educators, students, and researchers representing all University of Texas health institutions and seven medical schools to explore AI’s revolutionary potential. Speakers included AI experts from Stanford Health Care and tech giants Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.
“We are just beginning to see how much artificial intelligence can speed up the pace of scientific discovery,” said Eric Peterson, M.D., M.P.H., Vice Provost and Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Research at UT Southwestern, who moderated the symposium. “At UT Southwestern, every day we’re finding new ways to harness AI to analyze vast amounts of data, enhance our biomedical research, and, ultimately, deliver the most advanced treatments to our patients.”