Abstract

There is a growing understanding that AI is poised to become an important part of decision making in healthcare. There are many exciting applications of AI that have either been integrated in clinical practice already or are on a clear path to become integrated. I will illustrate the progress that’s been made in my lab towards this goal via a few examples that span a variety of healthcare questions. And yet, the reality of enabling AI in healthcare broadly is fraught with many obstacles from ethical to legal to still fundamentally unresolved AI questions. In the second part of my talk I will discuss the potential negative outcomes of improperly built AI models, the expertise and teamwork that’s needed to bring AI to healthcare and where we should focus our efforts to ensure that the technology is ready to enable the future of medicine. 

Speaker Biography

Dr Goldenberg is a Senior Scientist in Genetics and Genome Biology program at SickKids Research Institute, in 2018 she was appointed as the first Varma Family Chair in Biomedical Informatics and Artificial Intelligence. She is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, faculty member and an Associate Research Director, Health at Vector Institute and a fellow and AI Chair at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Child and Brain Development group. Dr Goldenberg trained in machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University, with a post-doctoral focus in computational biology and medicine.

The current focus of her lab is on developing machine learning methods that capture heterogeneity and identify disease mechanisms in complex human diseases as well as developing risk prediction and early warning clinical systems. Dr  Goldenberg is a recipient of the Early Researcher Award from the Ministry of Research and Innovation. She is strongly committed to creating responsible AI to benefit patients across a variety of conditions.