Forging the Future: CMU, Pitt Co-Host Summit on Health, AI and Technology – News

Leadership Recognized for Excellence

CMU President Farnam Jahanian was honored by the GFCC for his transformational leadership in higher education, research and innovation. Jahanian (third from left) is seen here with GFCC Vice-Chair | Australia, Charles Kiefel AM, GFCC Chair | USA, Chad Holiday; and Deborah Wince-Smith, President, GFCC | USA.

At the Leading Edge of Health, AI and Technology

On Tuesday the GFCC 2025 Global Innovation Summit began with a panel discussion about how Pittsburgh is uniquely positioned to be a leader in the integration of artificial intelligence in patient care and featured Carnegie Mellon University’s Pradeep Ravikumar and Carl Kingsford.

“When you talk about AI making an impact of discovering a new drug, you need to talk with the physicians who have spent decades learning the ins and outs of that particular disease,”  said Kingsford(opens in new window), Herbert A. Simon professor of computer science and director of the Center for Machine Learning and Health(opens in new window). “At CMU, our Ph.D program in computational biology sits at the intersection. It’s an early engine that could be developed to advance new therapies, new treatment selection and new drugs.” 

Ravikumar said he hopes future strides in generative AI research will allow health care providers to immediately and directly improve AI tools that are incorporated in medical settings.

“Gen AI has done really amazing things — listening to patient-doctor interactions and transcribing them so providers don’t have to, for example,” said Ravikumar(opens in new window), professor of machine learning(opens in new window) in the School of Computer Science(opens in new window). “There’s a lot of innovations happening, but it’s worth studying how doctors can incorporate their context directly so they can steer the AI models to their needs.”

From Diagnostics to Treatments: Leveraging Tech Opportunities to Advance Healthcare

Later in the morning, a panel of academics and health care practitioners discussed how machine learning and AI can help guide complex care for patients, particularly when treating the brain.

“We want to figure out how the body influences the brain and its cognitive function so we can understand how to optimize treatments,” said Jana Kainerstorfer(opens in new window), CMU professor of biomedical engineering(opens in new window) and associate department head for faculty and graduate affairs. 

Kainerstorfer explained how she’s studying dolphins — animals that can hold their breath for 30 minutes — to understand how their brains can continue to function without a continuous supply of oxygen. She hopes that it will lead to new discoveries that can support human brain functions in traumatic care settings. 

“There are so many ways we can modulate our body that have an effect on function. We are asking, how can we leverage the interactions between body and brain to create better human cognitive performance?” Kainerstorfer said. “At the core of this we need better devices, such as how to make better ventilators to support human brains.”

However, CMU’s Andrew Li(opens in new window) said that in order to achieve medical breakthroughs, there needs to be better communication between practitioners and language models.

“I think what’s missing right now is connecting the medical problems to the AI methods,” said Li, Frank A. and Helen E. Risch Assistant Professor of Operations Research(opens in new window) at the Tepper School of Business(opens in new window).

Health, AI and Tech: Investing in a Future

AI’s rapid growth and development poses unique challenges and opportunities for investors. In a late morning session, business leaders and experts weighed in on the ever-evolving health technology landscape from a financial perspective. 

“The speed of innovation is hastening so quickly, we are building the future economy with the companies we build today,” said Meredith Meyer Grelli(opens in new window), managing director and interim executive director at CMU’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship(opens in new window). 

“Pittsburgh has this unique opportunity to blend our world-leading research in machine learning, AI and health care,” she said. “We as a region have to decide: Do we want to build the future economy? If the answer is yes, that needs to be our single minded goal. No matter what we’re investing in in Pittsburgh that has to be the guiding light and if we don’t do that, it’s never going to happen.” 

Grelli also had advice for founders in the early stages of company development.

“Really think about the investor you’re working with and their philosophy,” she said. “Understand your strengths and how you can grow before you commit to any particular investor.”

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