In another indication of the rapidly growing importance of AI in healthcare, the Mount Sinai Health System, New York City's largest academic medical system encompassing eight hospitals, has introduced a new PhD concentration in Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies in Medicine (AIET) as part of its PhD in Biomedical Sciences program.

The concentration centers on AI and emerging technologies (AIET) to advance innovative technologies for various clinical applications and, among other things, will boost efforts to develop and implement new tools for faster, less expensive, and more effective drug discovery. 

Moreover, using data collected across departments and institutes within the Mount Sinai Health System, researchers will leverage patient-driven biology and various biological and simulation data to provide physicians with the tools to provide better diagnosis and care for their patients. .

“The transformative impact of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies in medicine is just beginning.  We are now on the frontier of more accurately identifying the indicators of disease and opening up new vistas for treatment of illness in real-time,” said Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and President for Academic Affairs of the Mount Sinai Health System, in an announcement. 

“Establishing this concentration is part of an expanding institutional commitment at Mount Sinai to advance this critically important area that will be a game-changer for physicians in their ability to provide better diagnose and care for their patients.”

Medical researchers increasingly recognize that the answers to many fundamental questions in medicine and biology currently lie buried inside data collections that are too large and heterogeneous to be stored, curated, analyzed, and visualized by traditional approaches.

Given that complexity, said Thomas J. Fuchs, Icahn Mount Sinai’s newly appointed Dean of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health and an internationally renowned scientist in the field of computational pathology, “Future biomedical researchers will need to be equipped with the necessary skill sets to tackle escalating complexity in medicine. Not only will this new generation of professionals need to receive foundational education in the use of information systems, but they will need to learn how to develop and interpret predictive diagnostic and therapeutic models using a variety of machine learning tools based on statistics and probability theory, drawing upon quantitative fields such as computer science, mathematics, theoretical physics, theoretical/computational chemistry, and digital engineering.”

The Institute will also tap existing relationships with various higher education institutions outside Mount Sinai to offer expertise and boost collaborative research and opportunities for trainees and faculty. 

Applications will be open from late August through December 1, 2021 for enrollment in the fall of 2022.