NIH harnesses power of AI for COVID-19 diagnosis, treatment

Editor's Note

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) on August 5 announced the launch of the Medical Imaging and Data Resource Center, which will create new tools using artificial intelligence (AI) and medical imaging to diagnose and personalize therapies for COVID-19 patients.

The Center will build a large repository of COVID-19 chest images so that researchers can evaluate lung and cardiac tissue data, ask critical research questions, and develop predictive COVID-19 imaging signatures.

A major challenge is to rapidly and accurately identify these signatures and evaluate this information in combination with other clinical symptoms and tests.

The goals of the Center are to lead the development and implementation of new diagnostics, including machine learning algorithms, that will allow rapid and accurate assessment of the patient’s COVID-19 disease status and help physicians optimize treatment.