David Shyr, MD, on Incorporating AI Into Medicine

“Sometimes big data is not available, especially for pediatric doctors who deal with rare diseases, small patient populations. I would love to have thousands of cases, but there are thousands of cases. So how do you overcome that? I think that is where machine learning can come in. Artificial intelligence offers a tool to tackle problems we were previously not able to solve or would need to be solved with in multicenter international collaborations to gain the power needed. This may not necessarily be limiting us anymore. So, I'm very happy that ASH actually had many sessions [on AI].”

CGTLive spoke with David Shyr, MD, clinical assistant professor, pediatric stem cell transplantation, Stanford Medicine, at the 2023 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, held December 9-12, in San Diego, California, about data he presented at the meeting on KMAU-001 (nulabeglogene autogedtemcel; Kamau Therapeutics), a CRISPR/Cas9-edited cell therapy.

Shyr also shared research trends in hematology, and medicine in general, that he was excited to see touched on during the ASH meeting. One such trend is the growing excitement for using artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine, which Shyr believes is rising in prominence in the field in general. He contrasted attitudes and familiarity with AI in 2023 with its relative anonymity in years prior but cautioned that interested researchers and doctors as a whole should become more familiar with AI before it becomes a buzz word in the field.

Click here to view more coverage of the ASH 2023 meeting.

REFERENCE

Shyr DC, Lowsky R, Miller W, et al. One Year Follow-up on the First Patient Treated with Nula-Cel: An Autologous CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Corrected CD34+ Cell Product to Treat Sickle Cell Disease. Presented at: ASH 2023 Annual Meeting; December 9-12; San Diego, California. Abstract 5000