News & Events
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CPH in the News
The Center for Healthcare Marketplace Innovation to Improve Public Health
Featured faculty: Jon Kolstad, PhD, Ziad Obermeyer, MD
The Center for Healthcare Marketplace Innovation aims to shape the future of AI in healthcare through groundbreaking economic research, data partnerships, and more.
Source: Berkeley Public Health
March 6, 2024
2024 STATUS List features Ida Sim in top 50 influential people shaping science of health and medicine
Featured faculty: Ida Sim, MD, PhD
STAT NEWS honors the leadership and contributions of CPH’s Ida Sim–including her in the STATUS2024 list of fifty individuals in the world doing most to shape healthcare, life sciences, and biotechnology. Fellow honorees include Peter Lee of Microsoft Research, Nobel winner Katalin Karikó and other notables.
Source: STAT News
February 27, 2024
AI Helps Predict Onset of Alzheimer’s Disease and Genetic Risk Factors
Featured faculty: Marina Sirota, PhD, Sergio Baranzini, PhD
Marina Sirota, Sergio Baranzini and colleagues use machine learning and knowledge graphs to predict Alzheimer’s onset up to 7 years in advance and identify possible genetic markers and risk factors by gender.
Source: UCSF
February 21, 2024
Providing Relief for Chronic Migraines with New Sensors and Computational Methods
Featured faculty: Sandya Subramanian, PhD
Times Higher Education features Sandya Subramanian’s work to bring hope to chronic migraine patients through use of physiological sensors and analytical tools that analyse the autonomic nervous system for clues about the debilitating condition.
Source: Times Higher Education
February 8, 2024
Artificial intelligence is poised to revolutionize cancer diagnosis in patients
Featured faculty: Atul Butte, MD, PhD, FACMI
Dr. Atul Butte describes how AI tools can help ID drugs and treatments that fight cancer and empower patients–and cautions that we aren’t quite there yet.
Source: SF Examiner
February 4, 2024
Technology in our daily lives: clinician or company information?
Featured faculty: Ida Sim, MD, PhD
CPH’s Ida Sim highlights the ways that wearable devices like the Apple Watch focus user attention–on what the company (rather than clinicians) decide is most measurable/important.
Source: The Atlantic
February 1, 2024
Using AI to help read MRIs–and improve treatment of lower back pain and other complex conditions
Featured faculty: Sharmila Majumdar, PhD
Researchers at UCSF are using AI to help read MRIs for common but complex conditions like lower back pain, and see improvements in diagnosis, better identification of links between symptoms, and reduced patient time spent in claustrophobic scanners.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
January 24, 2024
Berkeleyan Features New CPH Faculty Member
Featured faculty: Irene Chen, PhD
Berkeley News highlights new faculty arrivals–including our own Irene Chen.
Source: Berkeley News
January 16, 2024
How America’s Most Vulnerable Populations Can Overcome Barriers in Accessing Healthcare
Featured faculty: Niloufar Salehi, PhD
NPR podcast The Pulse talks to Niloufar Salehi (from 32:08) about how machine translation can make care more accessible–and ongoing research to improve function for patients and clinicans alike.
Source: NPR The Pulse
December 8, 2023
Agile Metabolic Health: Using Open Platforms to Transform Health Research and Care
Featured faculty: Ida Sim, MD, PhD
CPH co-director Ida Sim, Berkeley Institute for Data Science director Fernando Pérez, and colleagues have launched Agile Metabolic Health--and a new paradigm for health algorithm development and diabetes management. The inaugural effort of the Open Platforms for Powering Science and Society initiative at the UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society, Agile Metabolic Health will pilot a new approach to the development of algorithms and clinical decision support using data from wearable devices, such as blood pressure cuffs and continuous glucose monitoring.
Source: College of Computing, Data Science, and Society
December 6, 2023
Using AI/ML to Connect the Diagnostic Dots
Featured faculty: Sergio Baranzini, PhD
Sergio Baranzini describes how use of artificial intelligence and machine learning models–coupled with biomedical knowledge graphs–can identify subtle yet potentially significant signs and symptoms in the medical record, improving diagnosis of MS and other conditions.
Source: Neurology Today
November 16, 2023
How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Medicine
Featured faculty: Adam Yala, PhD
Adam Yala talks machine learning, cancer risk prediction and the future transformation of medicine with The Brain Surgeon’s Take Podcast.
Source: The Brain Surgeon’s Take
November 9, 2023
Prediction-powered inference for assessment of confidence intervals and uncertainty in ML
Featured faculty: Michael Jordan, PhD
Which questions does machine learning answer well or badly? ML models have lacked the ability to label confidence intervals or quantify statistical certainty when producing results. Michael Jordan and colleagues introduce “prediction-powered inference,” a standardized protocol for constructing valid confidence intervals and P values to support responsible and reliable inference.
Source: Berkeley News
November 9, 2023
Increasing time spent on Electronic Medical Record may require system/reimbursement reform
Featured faculty: A. Jay Holmgren, PhD
A. Jay Holmgren and colleagues find time by physicians in the Electronic Medical Record is up sharply, both during and after patient scheduled hours. UCSF providers spent nearly 5.5 of 8 patient scheduled hours working in the EMR. Health systems and policymakers may need to adjust both productivity expectations and reimbursement policies.
Source: Healthcare IT News
November 8, 2023
Machine Learning to improve options for Medicare patients
Featured faculty: Jonathan Kolstad, PhD
Jonathan Kolstad and Berkeley Haas colleagues have created Healthpilot–a free, online platform that uses machine learning to weigh complex personalized factors and provide Medicare consumers with recommendations for better, and often lower cost, coverage options than those offered by insurance brokers.
Source: Berkeley Haas Newsroom
November 7, 2023
Berkeley School of Public Health and Kaiser Permanente partner to launch new CA Center for Outbreak Readiness
Featured faculty: Joseph Lewnard, PhD and Isabel Rodriguez-Barraquer, MD, PhD
With a $17.5M grant from the CDC, CPH faculty and colleagues are partnering with Kaiser Permanente Southern California to launch a new center boosting California’s capacity to respond to infectious disease outbreaks. The California Center for Outbreak Readiness will develop cutting-edge analytics, tools and platform for emergency health response.
Source: Berkeley Public Health News
October 18, 2023
Clinical AI: Predictive Power as Possible Pitfall
Featured faculty: Adam Yala, PhD
As medical AI tools are deployed in the hospital, their accuracy may falter as patients do better. Adam Yala comments on the limitations of predictive models and the needed work to improve them.
Source: Stat News
October 10, 2023
An expert shares how AI could help doctors treat domestic violence victims
Featured faculty: Irene Y. Chen, PhD
In this Q&A, Irene Chen describes how machine learning could help clinicians identify and support victims of intimate partner violence, her work on machine learning for equitable healthcare, and a related upcoming event at UCSF, Toward Algorithmic Justice in Precision Medicine
Source: College of Computing, Data Science, and Society
October 3, 2023
AI and Clinical Practice: Augmenting Humanity in Medicine
Featured faculty: Ida Sim, MD/PhD
JAMA Editor in Chief Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, in conversation with Ida Sim, Professor of Medicine, UCSF and CPH co-Director, about the promise and perils of AI in the clinical encounter, and how to keep humanity at the center.
Source: JAMA Network
September 27, 2023
What EHR Metadata Tell Us About Team-Based Interventions for Inbox Reduction
Featured faculty: A. Jay Holmgren, PhD
Host Dr. Christine Sinsky, AMA Vice President of Professional Satisfaction, and guest A Jay Holmgren, Assistant Professor of Medicine at UCSF, and the Center for Clinical Informatics and Improvement Research, discuss how assessing Epic Signal data and other EHR metadata can be a useful tool for evaluating team-based interventions to reduce inbox volume.
Source: American Medical Association
September 13, 2023
The 100 most Influential People in AI 2023
Featured faculty: Ziad Obermeyer, MD; Stuart Russell, PhD
Time highlights Ziad Obermeyer’s work on detecting racial bias in algorithms and use of machine learning to improve physician decision making, and Stuart Russell’s pioneering work to make sure that AI is beneficial to humans.
Source: Time
September 7, 2023
New & Notable
National Multiple Sclerosis Society Awards Dr. Sergio Baranzini the Barancik Prize for Innovation in MS Research
Featured faculty: Sergio Baranzini, PhD
By integrating massive amounts of data generated by advanced technologies, Dr. Sergio Baranzini and colleagues have identified gene variants linked to faster MS progression. These discoveries are bringing deeper understandings of factors that are driving multiple sclerosis.
Source: National Multiple Sclerosis Society
January 30, 2024
Nikita Mehandru, Niloufar Salehi, and colleagues win Outstanding Paper Award in physician detection of clinical harm in MT.
Featured students and faculty: Nikita Mehandru; Niloufar Salehi, PhD
CPH student and lead author Nikita Mehandru, CPH faculty Niloufar Salehi and colleagues have won an outstanding paper award at the recent Empirical Methods of Natural Language Processing Conference for their work on Physician Detection of Clinical Harm in Machine Translation.
Source: ACL Anthology
December 2023
Ahmed Alaa wins Microsoft grant for LLM use in real-world evidence evaluation
Featured faculty: Ahmed Alaa, PhD; Maya Petersen, MD, PhD; Mark van der Laan, PhD
Ahmed Alaa has been awarded a grant from Microsoft's Accelerate Foundation Models Research Program to use LLMs to develop statistical analysis plans for observational studies. Working with CPH faculty Maya Petersen and Mark van der Laan, Alaa and team will create a chatbot-based LLM that will communicate with multiple stakeholders (statisticians, drug developers & clinical researchers) to develop high-quality statistical analysis plans to evaluate evidence for health benefit in contexts where clinical trials are impracticable.
Source: Microsoft Accelerate Foundation Models Research Program
October 25, 2023
Atul Butte wins 2023 Stead Award for Thought Leadership in Informatics
Featured faculty: Atul Butte, MD, PhD, FACMI
Dr. Atul Butte has been awarded the 2023 Stead Award for Thought Leadership in Informatics, in acknowledgement of influence over our thinking about informatics, especially improving health and health care in ways that are visionary and transformative.
Source: AMIA
October 9, 2023
Upcoming Events
Friday, April 5, 2023, 12:00-1:00pm, Mission Hall, MH 1406
AI Seminar Series: Shaping the Responsible Adoption of AI in Healthcare
Dr. Nigam H. Shah, MBBS, PhD, will speak on Stanford Healthcare’s efforts to shape the adoption of health AI tools to be useful, reliable, and fair so that they lead to cost-effective solutions that meet health care's needs
This seminar series is sponsored by UCSF Bakar Institute for Computational Health Science, UCSF Division of Clinical Informatics and Digital Transformation, UCSF-UC Berkeley Computational Precision Health Program, and UCSF Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
Click here to view official flyer.
Tuesday, March 12, 2023, 11:30-12:45pm, Berkeley Way West building, Room 5401
CTML/Biostats Research Seminar Series
CPH’s Ahmed Alaa speaks on new methods of conformal prediction and uncertainty quantification.
Recent Events
February 8, 2024
Senate Finance Committee testimony on“Artificial Intelligence and Health Care: Promise and Pitfalls.”
Dr. Ziad Obermeyer joined experts testifying before the US Senate Finance Committee on AI use in healthcare, noting how machine learning can help address health challenges or worsen disparities in care.
February 7, 2024
AI in Healthcare: "Towards Explainability, Transparency, and Responsible Governance"
CPH co-director Ida Sim joins UC Health Chief Health Data Officer Cora Han, policymakers, clinicians and interested members of the public at UC Center Sacramento to discuss, transparency, responsible governance, and the merits and limits of explainability of AI use in healthcare.
January 29, 2024
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science in the Medical Imaging of COVID and CANCER: MIDRC to the Real World
Speaker: Maryellen Giger, PhD, Professor of Radiology, University of Chicago
In the second UCSF seminar on Implementation and Evaluation of AI in real-world clinical settings, Professor Giger discussed AI in medical imaging, task-based discovery, predictive modeling, and robust clinical translation. With examples from cancer and COVID-19, including the creation and benefits of the large, open data set MIDRC (midrc.org).
Presentation recording will be shared here shortly.
This seminar series is sponsored by UCSF Bakar Institute for Computational Health Science, UCSF Division of Clinical Informatics and Digital Transformation, UCSF-UC Berkeley Computational Precision Health Program, and UCSF Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
January 12, 2024
UCSF AI Seminar Series Implementation and Evaluation of AI in Real-World Clinical Settings: "Artificial Intelligence (AI) Readiness at UCSF: Current State and Future Directions"
A panel discussion on the state of clinical AI at UCSF, including Sara Murray, MD, MAS; Ida Sim, MD, PhD; Atul Butte, MD, PhD, Mark Pletcher, MD, MPH, and moderation by Julia Adler-Milstein, PhD.
View recording here. View slides here.
January 8, 2024
CPH/CTML Seminar: Dr. John Concato "FDA guidance on real-world evidence"
Seminar by Dr. John Concato, Office of Medical Policy in FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, discussing FDA guidance on real-world evidence, historical context for the current approach, and challenges when using real-world data and evidence in drug development. Co-sponsored with the UC Berkeley Center for Targeted Machine Learning.
Presentation recording will be shared here shortly.
December 7, 2023
UCSF 2023 State of the University Address | Confluence
Featured Faculty: Atul Butte, MD, PhD; Sara Murray, MD, MAS
UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood's 2023 State of the University Address included a focus on the power and potential of AI to reshape healthcare. The work of CPH co-director Ida Sim (10:26) and the CPH program (18:06) were commended, and UCSF (and CPH) faculty Atul Butte and Sara Murray joined the Chancellor on stage for a panel discussing UCSF plans to move forward research, patient protection and clinical care forward (39:40).
November 7, 2023
Toward Algorithmic Justice in Precision Medicine
Featured Faculty: Ida Sim, MD, PhD
This workshop convened health system professionals, biomedical investigators, and AI tool developers, to consider systemic flaws in data collection, datasets, and AI tools, and how resultant algorithmic injustices can be uncovered and addressed, enabling equitable advances in precision medicine.
October 31, 2023
CPH PhD Presentation: UC Berkeley Virtual Graduate Diversity Admissions Fair
Learn more about the Computational Precision Health PhD program, our commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging, and details on the application and admissions process for 2024 matriculation. A presentation by CPH co-Directors, Drs. Maya Petersen, and Ida Sim, with CPH faculty, Drs. Adam Yala, Irene Chen, and Sandya Subramanian.
November 2, 2023
Seminar: Dr. Gilmer Valdes "Lockout: Sparse regulation of neural networks"
Featured Faculty: Gilmer Valdes, PhD
A seminar by Gilmer Valdes on "Lockout"--a fast algorithm to address limitations of other analysis models for Neural Networks, and specific applications in medicine and medical image data.
October 24, 2023
Seminar: Dr. Emre Kiciman "Causal inference and LLMs: A new frontier"
The Center for Targeted Machine Learning and Computational Precision Health are pleased to present a seminar by Dr. Emre Kiciman, Senior Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research
Seminar recording forthcoming.
September 28, 2023
Ethics in the Age of AI Health Monitoring
Featured faculty: Ida Sim, MD, PhD
A discussion between Anita Ho, PhD, MPH and Ida Sim, MD, PhD on remote health monitoring and artificial intelligence ethics using case studies from Dr. Ho’s new book, Live Like Nobody Is Watching: Relational Autonomy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Health Monitoring.
September 12, 2023
ML4H Rising Stars Series, #5: Machine learning for clinical trials & precision medicine
A presentation by Dr. Ruishan Liu, Incoming Assistant Professor, Stanford University
August 28, 2023
ML4H Rising Stars Series, #4: LLMs for Transformative Healthcare at Scale (Med-PaLM)
A presentation by Karan Singhal, Staff Research Engineer, Google Research
August 15, 2023
ML4H Rising Stars Series, #3: Toward Next-Generation Health and Well-being
A presentation by Dr. Xuhai "Orson" Xu, Postdoc, MIT
August 11, 2023
Transforming Personal and Public Health Through Computation
Featured faculty: Ida Sim, MD, PhD
A presentation by Ida Sim, part of the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine Mini Medical School for the Public series