SDiPath Trailblazers in AI Series – Prof Maria Gabrani

AI for medicine; what is the medicine for AI?

Abstract: In times when AI, with its latest trends on foundation models andGenerative AI has the power to influence decision support and discovery in so many domains, the question is how it impacts the delivery and discovery in the area of Healthcare & lifescieneces. What is its role to better serve the needs of the patients and the caregivers and what are the limitations. How to address the limitations and what is the role of each stakeholder in patient care. What is the interplay between technology & humans and how this changes as technology and technology understanding improves? Can women make a difference? The goal of this presentation is not to give all the answers but to bring a mindset, a thought leadership, that aims to shape the way we may want to consider approaching patient care in this new tech-driven world.

Bio: Maria Gabrani is a Research Staff Member at IBM Research Zurich since 2001. She is currently Chief of Staff and Operations Manager to Alessandro Curioni, IBM Fellow, VP IBM Europe Africa, Director IBM-Research Europe. In her current role she is responsible for 5 EMEA labs and 2 global IBM Research Strategies, namely, Accelerated Discovery, and Security. In Accelerated Discovery we are developing an AI-based platform for customizable workflows with special focus on climate and sustainability, healthcare and lifesciences, and sustainable materials. In Security we develop technologies for thread management, secure infrastructure, data and AI, quantum-safe cryptography and decentralized trust.

In her previous role, Maria was an IBM Research strategist in Accelerated Discovery for Healthcare and Lifesciences, specifically in the areas of oncology and biomarkers discovery, she served as member of the Exploratory Lifesciences Council of IBM Research, and was managing the Cognitive Healthcare and Lifesciences group that that has 3 subgroups, namely, computational pathology, computational single-cell research and computational cancer immunology.

Before joining IBM, from 1999 until 2001, Maria worked for Philips Research, in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. She holds a Ph.D and MS degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA, and a Diploma in Electrical Engineering from Aristotle University, Thessaloniki Greece. She has received numerous awards including several Outstanding technical Achievement awards, from IBM Corporation, and Technical Achievement Award, from IBM Research Division and numerous best paper awards, from NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Image Registration Workshop (1997), to best paper awards in MICCAI (2020, 2021, 2022) and more than 60 patents.

Zoom link: https://unibe-ch.zoom.us/j/64244437918?pwd=ME0zc1JlTFZZMTQ5UERpZGpXY0xRdz09

Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeElhR830Xyf2qrZYgHhdGtO7Yd1bRCZmmBgg2fpZdJ5xUXKA/viewform