Who am (A)I? Tech that matters

How do computers simulate real-life events? How and why are these simulations useful, particularly in a healthcare setting? This talk will give an overview of how computational simulations work, through the lens of developing a prosthetic heart valve. The clinical background to prosthetic heart valves will be discussed, followed by an identification of the design requirements for these prostheses, and examples of how these requirements are computationally tested. Further discussion will revolve around how computational simulations are used to inform clinical guidelines and practice.

We’ve recently been working with a group of South American Indigenous artists and writers to explore how they find their cultures represented by the new generation of commercially-available image generation tools like MidJourney, and what they want to do about this. We started by exploring the stereotypical and otherwise inaccurate portrayals of individual cultures to be found in these tools. We then went on to develop our own prototype image generation tool based on Stable Diffusion which we are currently testing to see how much better it can get at representing Indigenous cultures.

Find out how data science and artificial intelligence (AI) are revolutionising the way we discover and develop new medicines. In this talk, you’ll hear about exciting, recent applications of AI in drug discovery, such as predicting the 3D shapes of molecules in humans and disease-causing viruses and bacteria, identifying where drugs should target, and designing new therapeutics. You’ll learn how powerful AI tools are already transforming biomedical research, which will allow scientists to generate better treatments faster and improve outcomes for millions of patients worldwide.