College of Medicine’s Azra Bihorac highlights AI breakthroughs
On Nov. 3, a new, seven-story, 263,440-square-foot center that will transform the artificial intelligence and data science workforce celebrated its grand opening in the heart of campus.
The Malachowsky Hall for Data Science & Information Technology will host interdisciplinary collaborators, advance AI education and scholarship and set the standard for STEM facilities across the nation. The building will also serve as the hub for the Biomedical AI Collaborative, a co-working space that will foster connections among health-related AI researchers from across UF.
As part of the day’s festivities, Intelligent Clinical Care Center (IC3) and Precision and Intelligent Systems in Medicine Research Partnership (PRISMAp) lab director Azra Bihorac, M.D., M.S., FCCM, FASN, delivered a presentation on the UF College of Medicine advancements in AI made possible through the university’s partnership with NVIDIA. In attendance were NVIDIA CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang, as well as co-founder and UF alumnus Chris Malachowsky, for whom the building was named.
“Our ultimate goal is to transform how care is delivered in the clinical setting and beyond,” Bihorac said. “Thanks to our work with NVIDIA, we are able to use the power of AI to realize better health in a better world.”
During the presentation, Bihorac chronicled her AI research journey, which began in 2016 when she used a NVIDIA graphics processing unit, or GPU, to power an AI-driven surgical care optimization platform as part of a National Institutes of Health grant. Named MySurgeryRisk, the tool augments surgeons’ skills by predicting surgical complications, speeding the decision-making process.
Other breakthroughs from the collaboration include the DeepSOFA AI system. This real-time, patient illness severity assessment is powered by HiPerGator, a highly potent supercomputer that runs on NVIDIA GPUs. Similarly, Bihorac described howtheIntelligent Hospital project used NVIDIA-driven data collected from patient movement sensors to track pain, agitation and mobility, helping to provide real-time health care recommendations.
Bihorac’s current research on the “Digital Twin of the Intelligent Hospital” was a highlight of her presentation. A virtual replica of an intensive care unit room that is rendered using NVIDIA Omniverse technology, the “digital twin” will provide opportunities for providers to plan and simulate care strategies in the virtual world, as well as optimize real-world health care delivery.
Looking to the future, Bihorac shared plans for how her team will develop an “AI Passport for Health,” a UF Strategic Initiative selected by President Ben Sasse that will enable health professionals to integrate AI into their fields. Two new graduate biomedical AI programs, offered through the College of Medicine, will also help Bihorac achieve her goal of graduating the first generation of physicians who hold master’s degrees in AI.
“This beautiful Malachowsky Hall will not just be a landmark but a symbol of the transformative shift that AI will bring to medical education and patient care,” she said. “I look forward to seeing how this space will foster the development of an AI-equipped health care workforce.”