DoM's Dr. Neesh Pannu is co-lead of the College of Health Sciences new AI + Health Hub
20 May 2025
By Gillian Rutherford, Folio
Harnessing AI to improve access to quality health care
The ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ College of Health Sciences is launching an AI + Health Hub to harness the power of data and computing science to solve a wide range of health-care challenges from quicker diagnoses to streamlining hospital queues and discovering new drugs.
The new hub brings together more than 120 researchers from 10 faculties to collaborate, educate and innovate, with the goal of turning AI-driven health-care research into solutions that are accessible to all ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ns.
“It’s an exciting opportunity to bridge the digital divide so we can use new technologies to improve health care for everyone,” says hub co-lead , a nephrologist and vice-dean of clinical research in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.
“We are building a community around the way artificial intelligence is designed and deployed in health-care settings,” says co-lead Gillian Lemermeyer, assistant professor in the Faculty of Nursing and assistant adjunct professor in the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre.
“We want to build on partnerships that already exist between computer scientists and engineers and physicians, and expand that to include all health-care disciplines, artists and sociologists and students and industry,” Lemermeyer says.
The U of A is already a global leader in artificial intelligence, earning $100 million for AI research since 2017, with 24 based at the university and a strong relationship with the (Amii), the only institute of its kind in Western Canada.
¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ is also home to the largest population-based health data set in North America, which allows research to be based on information about the health of people of all ages, ethnicities and demographic backgrounds, says Pannu, noting that Denmark and Taiwan are the only other places in the world with such a rich resource.