Cell Death, Lysosomes and Artificial Intelligence Group
Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, Sweden
Our group develops artificial intelligence models for biomedical data and uses them to study the molecular regulation of cell death and lysosomes and their role in various diseases (especially neurodegenerative diseases, lysosomal storage disorders, stroke and cancer) with the aim of finding new treatments. We combine basic cell biology, clinical research, bioimaging, structural biology and different forms of computational science.
We are located at the Biomedical Centre (BMC) at Lund University in Sweden, which lies in the vibrant Copenhagen-Malmö region.
Research team
The group is led by Sonja Aits, PhD (image), who also directs the COMPUTE research school at Lund Univsity and is part of the AI Lund steering group. In addition, the team consists of the PhD students Salma Kazemi Rashed and Rafsan Ahmed and frequently rotating Master, Bachelor and project students. We also closely collaborate with other researchers at Lund University and elsewhere in the world.
OpenChart-SE: A Citizen science project for Swedish doctors and medical students
Every year hundreds of thousands of patients are treated in Swedish hospitals. By studying them thoroughly, we could gain many new insights into disease conditions, e.g. learn to predict disease outcomes, understand common symptom combinations or detect common adverse effects. To do this, we would need to systematically go through the patients’ electronic health records and extract information about prior diseases and medications, symptoms and other patient characteristics. Unfortunately, it is not possible to do this manually as the amount of text that needs to be processed far exceeds the resources available for research.
Artificial intelligence models trained to extract specific types of information, such as symptoms, could help with this. To train such models, we need to have patient health records as training material. However, real health records are highly sensitive in their nature and cannot be shared openly. To solve this problem, we want to generate a collection of “fake” electronic health records, written by real Swedish health care professionals and medical students about imaginary patients. These can then be shared openly with researchers and used to train and evaluate a variety of artificial intelligence models without any privacy concerns. These models will learn the language typically used by Swedish health care professionals and can then be used on real patient records after appropriate evaluation and ethical approval.
If you are a health care professional or medical student in Sweden, you can help create this valuable resource by filling in one or several “fake” health records here.
After completion of the data collection, the data will be made publicly available.
For more information about this project read here or contact the project leaders Sonja Aits and Johanna Berg.
Work with us!
The Cell Death, Lysosomes and Artificial Intelligence Group is looking for enthusiastic students and Postdocs. We are also always open to additional collaborations. Get in touch by mailing to: sonja.aits@med.lu.se