Title: Towards ecologically sustainable AI for pathology

Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already widespread in medical research and will expectedly revolutionize clinical practice and health care. AI methods can be employed to analyze large medical data collections, to diagnose disease or to perform prognosis of disease progression. This is particularly true for pathology, a medical diagnostic field mainly relying on image data Pathology might be one of the first areas of medicine substantially transformed by AI. At the same time, the growing energy consumption and CO2 emissions associated with both development and large-scale application of AI models become a concern. AI promises benefits for the patient, but comes at the cost of accelerating climate change. In this talk, I will discuss the environmental consequences of using AI in pathology. I will also touch upon potential approaches to consider and mitigate this towards a more environmentally friendly “green” AI.

Bio: Professor Peter Boor received his medical and scientific training at the Medical Schools of Bratislava in Slovakia and Aachen Germany. He is the chair of Translational Nephropathology and senior consultant pathologist at the Institute of Pathology at the RWTH Aachen University. He also leads the Electron Microscopy Facility and Digital Pathology and is the RWTH Lecturer. He is a member of several national and international societies of pathology, renal pathology, and nephrology and received several prestigious awards and prizes for academic, clinical, and teaching excellence. His research group, the LaBooratory of Nephropathology, focuses on diagnostic biomarkers with a particular focus on imaging, digital pathology, and AI, as well as in vivo animal modeling, and understanding of pathological processes in CKD, fibrosis, and (micro)vasculature. He founded and is leading the German National Autopsy Registry (NAREG) and Research Network (NATON) and other research consortia. His scientific work encompasses more than 340 original papers, reviews and editorials, and several book chapters.

Paper Link: Ecologically sustainable benchmarking of AI models for histopathology | npj Digital MedicineLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window

How to attend: Either turn up to the event on the day, or if you want to attend online then please contact Adam Shephard (adam.shephard@warwick.ac.uk) for more details.