The Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced AI@HHMIexternal link, opens in a new tab today, an investment of $500 million over the next 10 years to support projects focused on artificial intelligence in the life sciences. As the largest private biomedical research organization in the United States, HHMI aims to explore the full promise of AI to accelerate scientific discovery at its Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia, and more than 300 affiliated laboratories at HHMI.
“By bringing together human curiosity and artificial intelligence in every phase of experimentation and data collection, we hope to enable a wide range of scientific breakthroughs at our Janelia research campus and in HHMI laboratories across the country,” said declared the president of HHMI. Erin O’Shea.
Although AI@HHMI is Janelia-centric, it will spur AI-focused collaborations within the broader HHMI community. Through this effort, hundreds of HHMI scientists will help design and execute a wide range of ambitious AI-based biomedical research projects.
AI@HHMI will adopt a research approach called “AI-in-the-Loop,” which will place AI at the heart of the scientific process to accelerate discovery and catalyze an explosion of knowledge about the complexities of life. AI systems will be used to help design experiments, create automated pipelines, collect high-quality “AI-ready” data, and create generalizable learning models capable of inferring underlying principles. underlying this data.
“Our scientists will reinvent the research process,” said Janelia’s CEO. Nelson Spruston. “As always at HHMI, people will remain at the center of this initiative. Multidisciplinary teams will collaborate to design, execute and interpret experiments. By sharing tools and results, we aim to transform and accelerate the discovery process, not only at HHMI, but around the world.
For 15 years, HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus has been at the forefront of AI-based research applied to biology. Janelia scientists have built machine learning systems to address a multitude of challenges in the life sciences and, previously, Janelia partnered with Google to apply AI systems to biology, both through through their Connectomics group and DeepMind. These efforts have resulted in a series of significant advances, including the first detailed map of an adult fly brainexternal link, opens in a new taba significant technological advance with direct implications for neuroscience researchexternal link, opens in a new tab.
“Janelia’s unique strength lies in the close collaboration between theoreticians, experimentalists, computer scientists and engineers that allows us to develop theoretical and computational models and collect high-quality experimental data to train and validate them,” said Stéphane SaalfeldJanelia, Senior Group Leader and Head of Calculation and Theory.
To launch the first phase of this investment, until October 4, 2024, AI@HHMI is launching a call for proposals for AI-based research projects led by HHMI Investigators, Freeman Hrabowski FellowsAnd Managers of the Janelia groupexternal link, opens in a new tab. Co-applicants may be included in the proposal, including other HHMI lab leaders, Hanna Gray Professorial Phase Fellowsor other HMMI or non-HHMI scientists with critical expertise. Accepted projects will be fully funded by HHMI and executed at Janelia in collaboration with HHMI Labs as well as a new team of AI scientists, AI engineers, robotics engineers and data scientists.
More information about AI@HHMI is available onlineexternal link, opens in a new tab.
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HHMI is the nation’s largest private biomedical research institution. Our scientists make discoveries that advance human health and our fundamental understanding of biology. We are also investing in transforming science education into a creative and inclusive enterprise that reflects the enthusiasm for research. HHMI’s headquarters is located in Chevy Chase, Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC.