AI: Are Your Scientists Ready for the Lab of the Future?

Few technologies have leapt from science fiction to fact as quickly as artificial intelligence (AI).

After years of build-up, and of promise and excitement, the high level of AI maturity, driven by high-performance computing power, is now ubiquitous.

And, in the pharmaceutical industry, the potential for even more technological innovation will only continue to increase. AI has already been modified for medicine in areas such as predictive analysis, population health management, clinical decision-making, and many other trend- or analytics-based solutions, and money spent on such technology is expected to reach nearly £6.2 billion by 2020.

Writing for the Huffington Post, Paul Denny-Gouldson, Vice President Strategic Solutions at IDBS, said: “With the advent of cloud access, and chip sets designed to massively improve compute performance, the stage is now set and the foundations are in place to enable AI concepts to be proven in the real world.”

However, while AI is likely to become one of the most important technologies of our era, we’re still in the early stages of deployment – and it is it important to equip students of medicine with the tools they need to effectively utilize computing and AI to advance their skills.

Addressing this issue, R&D magazine recently published an article titled Educating the next generation of medical professionals with machine learning is essential, by the Boston University School of Medicine, arguing that “if medical education begins to implement machine learning curriculum, physicians may begin to recognise the conditions and future applications where AI could potentially benefit clinical decision making and management early on in their career and be ready to utilize these tools better when beginning practice.”

It’s hard to disagree with Boston University’s assessment. New technologies, such as AI, will provide exciting possibilities throughout the world of science – but technology cannot act alone. If we teach healthcare professionals how to work together with new technologies, the opportunities could be endless.

You might also like to read our ebook: “The Shapeshifting Landscape of Scientific Informatics, How Legacy Technology Can Block the Road to Scientific Discovery”.