The country’s first AI Chair in Personalized Precision Medicine is established in Santiago

Chairman of Artificial Intelligence in Personalized Precision MedicineA proposal developed by the USC Cingular Research Center for Intelligent Technologies (CiTIUS) in collaboration with technology company Plexus Tech, under this theme, has become the only one in Spain to receive the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation. Specifically, you will receive a Total financing of 1,200,000 euros for the next four years, of which Rs 300,000 will be contributed by the company Plexus Tech. Its purpose is Optimize health care quality through personalization of care processes.

Your director,senan barrowThe current scientific director of USC’s Singular Center for Research in Intelligent Technologies (Citius) explains that this is a “significant” endowment, although what is most interesting to him is that it is a university-business chair, as stated in the call. “I think it is a demonstration of the president’s interest and it is good that companies are interested in these initiatives, and even more so in the case of the Galician people,” he said in a conversation with EL Correo.

senen barrow explains it precision medicine, which involves adapting the medical act, including diagnosis and administration of drugs according to the characteristics of each patient, is something that “has been in mind for a long time.” He assures that it is one thing to see that there is a clear dependence on how a disease develops, how it should be dealt with or how a drug reacts in a specific body, and another thing to Keep that information in a scientific and objective manner, “Increasingly, scientific and technological advances are allowing you to move from trial and error to something more definite, oriented toward success,” says Barrow, trying to explain the concept of personalized precision medicine.

And in this field, artificial intelligence is important because it has to handle a lot of information and there is no prior medical knowledge, “but many times you have to discover it and you have to develop applications from this data and whatever. What does this best every day is artificial intelligence.” Therefore, the director of this new Chair believes that directing it into this area is “contributing to one of the areas where people are going to benefit most, which is health.”

Citius researchers working on health issues for decades. Senan Barrow’s doctoral thesis, read more than thirty years ago, already dealt with the application of artificial intelligence in the field of medicine. It is now one of the application domains that Citius considers “the most important and where we put the most effort”.

In addition to the experience, Citius continues to conduct ongoing and growing research in this area Santiago and Galicia in detailIt is counted, in Sennen’s words, as one of the Bioscientific and Biotechnology Ecosystem Most important in Spain. “This seems like a very clear competitive advantage to us. In fact, the proposal we put forward identified more than 20 public and private agents who expressed their interest in collaborating with the Chairman at that time,” he says. They are other research centers such as CYCUS, SIMUS, IDIS, SITMAGA, the digital innovation hub Datalife or CESGA. Thus, the USC AI professor believes that “all the elements are present to contribute a grain of sand to this chair.” Advance in this field of health,

The call required that the chairs remain open in terms of the type of activity undertaken. Therefore, the main objectives it will address in the first four years of its life will not focus solely on research. they made An approach they call 360 degrees. “A series of research has been identified that are the first that we are going to launch in different areas of health, with people we are already collaborating with, in cardiology or oncology or drug design. “But we are interested in transferring this research to the clinic, creating new solutions, and impacting patients.”

are the old ones Construction, “This is a relatively new field that has yet to be discovered and new professionals need to be trained, with an orientation already in the field of medicine, in the field of information technology, and we are able to do this with our graduate students. Going to Santiago directing final degree projects, theses and even promoting the work of some postdocs in this area, such as Train those who practice medicine in the use of artificial intelligence To improve your work. And then it’s beneficial for the patient,” he explains.

This will also be considered on the same lines Spreading, In relation to this, Senen reflects that “it is necessary to give education with rigor and simplicity so that it can be assimilated by the general population into something that will influence them more and more.” And there is one part that they will rely on, which is advice. “These issues must not only be developed within a legal framework that in many ways has not yet been defined, but there is a whole set of ethical aspects that must be considered. there also Challenges related to computational fieldTo explain this 360-degree approach he explained in detail how this increasingly massive data is treated.

A list of proposals recognized by the government includes Twelve researchers with renowned experience Who act as guarantors of the Chairman’s activity, although there will be more collaborators. Some of them are scientific directors of the Santiago Health Research Institute (IDIS), maria luz coos, Rosa Maria Cruzeiras, Director of the Center for Mathematical Research and Technology of Galicia (CITMAGA); Director of SIMS, Mabel Loza, Director, National Genotyping Centre-ISCIII, Angel Carracedo,

The forecast is that in a month or two they will design first action plan And, in this way, the first step is taken “to start betting on what should be the priority.” the chairman has initial period of four years, However its director hopes that it will continue further.

Senane Barrow has once again maintained this point Galicia is at the forefront of artificial intelligence, “This Chair is a demonstration that when we say that we are in a very good position to become a region, even at the European level and not just in Spanish, doing high-level research in AI, training talent And the resources are being attracted, so this is no illusion. We say this because it is true and the facts objectively support us,” he concluded.