Mount Sinai to create AI center to improve patient outcomes

An interdisciplinary center that integrates artificial intelligence, data science and genomic screening—the first of its kind in New York City—is slated to open in late 2021.

Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine announced on Tuesday the launch of the Hamilton and Amabel James Center for Artificial Intelligence and Human Health, which will be staffed by about 40 principal investigators and 250 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and computer scientists.

“Mount Sinai has consistently been at the forefront of advancing healthcare across medical disciplines and this initiative represents our next step forward in building on that legacy,” says Kenneth Davis, MD, Mount Sinai Health System’s president and CEO. “We see the potential of artificial intelligence to radically transform the care that patients receive, and we want to shape and lead this effort.

Davis added that the new center will serve as a “hub where our talented researchers can collaborate in unprecedented ways and bring forward ideas and innovative technologies that achieve better outcomes for our patients.”

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Specifically, the center will focus on three key areas of research:

• A Center for Genomic Health, housed in the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Human Health building, meant to accelerate the integration of genomics into clinical care across the Mount Sinai Health System.
  
• Integrative Omics and Multi-Scale Disease Modeling, in which researchers will combine insights in genomics with epigenomics, pharmacogenomics and exposomics, as well as integrate the information with patient health records and data originating from wearable devices to model the molecular, cellular and circuit networks that promote disease progression.
  
• Precision Imaging, in which researchers will leverage AI to enhance the diagnostic power of imaging technologies—such as X-ray, MRI, CT and PET—as well as molecular imaging, and speeding the development of therapies.
  

In the area of imaging, Zahi Fayad, director of Mount Sinai’s Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute and vice chair for research for the Department of Radiology, sees “huge potential in using algorithms to automate the image interpretation and to acquire images much more quickly at high resolution—so that we can better detect disease and make it less burdensome for the patient.”


Fayad, who plans to broaden the scope of the Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute by recruiting more engineers and scientists, notes that aside from AI “we envision advance capabilities in two important areas—computer vision and augmented reality, and next generation medical technology enabling development of new medical devices, sensors and robotics.”