Duke University School of Medicine is home to multiple initiatives and centers aimed at advancing the frontiers of artificial intelligence and machine learning in medicine and healthcare. The School encompasses a broad array of multidisciplinary collaborations in AI for healthcare focused on discovery science, clinical research, patient care, community engagement, governance, and education and training.

Duke AI Health

Duke AI Health’s core mission is to advance research, training, and education in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science applications for health and healthcare. A multidisciplinary, campus-spanning initiative housed in the Duke University School of Medicine, AI Health harnesses expertise and insights across multiple schools, centers, and institutes at Duke to bring to bear the power of AI, machine learning, and related quantitative fields on medicine, healthcare delivery, and the health of individuals and communities. 

Duke Health AI Evaluation and Governance (E&G) Program

The Duke Health AI Evaluation & Governance (E&G) Program fosters continuous advancement in research and framework development related to responsible health AI.  The program is committed to supporting initiatives that ensure the reliable selection, development, deployment, and utilization of AI technologies. E&G connects experts across Duke and engages in internal, national, and international collaborations.

Discovery AI

Discovery AI, housed in the Duke University School of Medicine and spanning multiple schools, departments and institutes across campus, advances the integration of artificial intelligence with fundamental biological research. The Center’s core mission is to fundamentally transform how biological systems are interrogated and engineered across all scales, from molecular to cellular to tissue. 

AI in the News

Duke Spark Director Maciej Mazurowski, PhD

Spark Initiative for AI in Medical Imaging Officially Launches at Duke

The Duke Spark Initiative for AI in Medical Imaging formally launches this week. Spark’s mission at Duke encompasses research into development and use of artificial intelligence in medical imaging, with an emphasis on collaborative work between physicians across different specialties and machine learning experts.
AI generated image of physician standing in a hand.

Artificial Intelligence in Health Care: Promise and Pitfalls

Clinicians, researchers, and educators at Duke University School of Medicine and across Duke Health are using artificial intelligence (AI) to schedule surgeries more efficiently, give students immediate feedback on academic writing, and help speed up drug discovery. Duke is at the leading edge of efforts to maximize the benefits of AI in health care while putting effective guardrails in place to minimize potential risks. “We have a huge potential to reduce physician burden, increase health care efficiency, and improve the patient experience,” said Michael Pencina, PhD, director of Duke AI Health and chief data scientist for Duke Health. “But we need to be very intentional about what AI will be doing.”
A new AI platform (bottom) not only tells doctors where it’s looking, but which past experiences its using to draw its conclusions.

The First AI Breast Cancer Sleuth That Shows Its Work

Computer engineers and radiologists at Duke University have developed an artificial intelligence platform to analyze potentially cancerous lesions in mammography scans to determine if a patient should receive an invasive biopsy, and it shows physicians exactly how it came to its conclusions.
retinal Scan

AI model uses retinal scans to predict Alzheimer’s disease

A form of artificial intelligence designed to interpret a combination of retinal images was able to successfully identify a group of patients who were known to have Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting the approach could one day be used as a predictive tool, according to an interdisciplinary study from Duke University. The novel computer software looks at retinal structure and blood vessels on images of the inside of the eye that have been correlated with cognitive changes.