Researchers at the University of Hawaii (UH) Cancer Center and UH Mānoa John A. Burns School of Medicine were awarded more than $12 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish a new medical artificial intelligence (AI) and data science research center on the Kakaʻako campus, the university announced June 21.
The award from the NIH Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program will fund the Pacific Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science in Medicine (PAC-AID) through February 2031. PAC-AID will serve as a central hub for integrating AI into biomedical research to improve health outcomes in Hawaii, the Pacific region, and beyond, according to the university.
Over five years, PAC-AID will renovate the UH Cancer Center Data Center to provide high-performance computing resources and AI expertise to researchers. PAC-AID will also fund four inaugural research projects and support more than eight locally relevant pilot studies, the university said.
“At the heart of our mission as a flagship research university is the drive to translate innovation into meaningful impact,” said Vassilis Syrmos, incoming chancellor of UH Mānoa. “PAC-AID is a vital expansion of that mission, enabling our faculty to harness the power of artificial intelligence to pioneer new avenues of biomedical inquiry that were previously unreachable, solidifying the University of Hawaii at Mānoa’s role as a global leader in health innovation.”
The center will be led by principal investigators John Shepherd and Youping Deng. Shepherd is chief scientific officer at the UH Cancer Center and the B.H. and Alice C. Beams Endowed Professor in Cancer Research at the medical school. Deng is co-director of the Genomics and Bioinformatics Shared Resource at the UH Cancer Center, as well as professor and director of the Bioinformatics Core Facility at the medical school.
Initial projects include AI-driven research using full-body imaging to triage skin lesions, studying pancreatic cancer in Native Hawaiian and Japanese populations, modeling environmental toxicant effects on fetal development, and identifying genetic traits in congenital heart disease.
“This COBRE award provides the critical infrastructure to bridge advanced AI computational methods with our specific clinical and community health challenges,” Shepherd said. “… we are equipping them with the technical capabilities to tackle the most persistent health disparities in our islands and turn complex data into actionable health solutions.”
PAC-AID also aims to build Hawaii’s biomedical research workforce by supporting early-career faculty and investigators using AI and advanced data science to address medical and public health challenges. UH said the center is designed to develop six to eight early-stage faculty members at UH and other institutions in the Pacific islands.
“Through these efforts, alongside workshops and collaborative research opportunities, we will significantly strengthen Hawaii’s capacity for AI-enabled biomedical research and innovation to address important health challenges in our region and beyond,” Deng said.
