University of Cambridge and Envision Pharma host AI healthcare hackathon at Maxwell Centre
The University of Cambridge and Envision Pharma Group hosted a hackathon involving the use of AI for global healthcare at the Maxwell Centre last week.
The event, titled ‘Hack Medical Affairs: Actionable Insight for Global Care’, brought together data-intensive science students and industry experts to explore the potential of AI in autoimmune diseases. There were 33 participants in five teams.
Autoimmune diseases are a group of conditions in which the body's immune system mistakenly attacks its own tissues. They can affect people of all ages, with symptoms from mild to severe. There’s no cure: the goal is to develop treatments that can help manage the symptoms. Until AI, those treatments took up to 20 years to develop. But by empowering a new generation of innovators, AI has the potential to revolutionise the way autoimmune diseases are diagnosed, treated, and managed.
The use of AI helps identify new targets for drug development, accelerates the development of more personalised treatments, improves the accuracy of diagnosis, and predicts the course of the disease.
One of the students who took part in the hackathon said: “Our project focused on leveraging AI to extract crucial insights from clinical trial abstracts, including gender, age, treatment outcomes, condition and nationality of study participants in autoimmune disease research. Employing a pre-trained large language model with specialised label categories for biomedical tags, we correlated this information to predict treatment outcomes.
“Through our classification model, we were able to identify gender and regulatory requirements of the country of origin as the most influential variables, shedding light on essential factors in treatment effectiveness.
“Participating in the Envision Pharma Group Hack Medical Affairs hackathon was an incredible experience for my team and me. It provided a thrilling platform to apply my expertise in natural language processing to a new domain, while also mastering the art of team coordination amidst high-pressure situations.
“Overall, the hackathon not only allowed us to push the boundaries of our technical skills, but also provided a rewarding opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the field of healthcare.”
Wilmslow-based Envision Pharma Group is a medical affairs company which provides software and scientific solutions to the biopharma industry.
One of Envision’s team members said: “The event was a resounding success, with students bringing fresh perspectives and data-intensive skills to the table. Their enthusiasm was palpable throughout the hackathon and it was inspiring to witness their teamwork and dedication towards a common goal.
“The spotlight was on understanding treatment population dynamics, with a focus on the factors influencing doctors’ treatment decisions in the context of autoimmune diseases. The teams meticulously analysed the provided data and proposed innovative solutions to unveil how treatments for autoimmune diseases correlate with the characteristics of target patient populations.
“Our technical team gained valuable insights from the innovative solutions devised by the students to address the challenge. We were impressed by the quality of the solutions developed by the students, and their engagement towards deploying AI in life sciences was inspiring. It’s fulfilling to witness their technical skills being used to enhance patient outcomes and elevate quality of life.
“As our partnership with the University of Cambridge MPhil Data Intensive Science program persists, we anticipate numerous opportunities for further collaboration.”
A spokesperson added: “We were thrilled to have had PhD and master's students from the University of Cambridge MPhil Data Intensive Science take part in our hackathon event, extracting valuable trends and insights from ongoing discussions in the scientific community about the treatment of autoimmune diseases.
“Their innovative ideas and solutions impressed our industry experts and demonstrated the boundless potential of young minds in shaping the future of healthcare through AI.
“We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the University of Cambridge and the talented students who participated in this event. Their enthusiasm, dedication, and innovative thinking were truly inspiring.”
