Artificial intelligence to diagnose, treat and predict hematological diseases

Use artificial intelligence algorithms for the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of hematological diseases. This is the goal of the ALMA project.

Researchers from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and the Biomedical Research Center on Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine Network (CIBERBBN) in Spain participate in the project. Also present in the responsible consortium are Hospital 12 de Octubre, Hospital Clínico San Carlos and Hospital Vall d’Hebron, as well as the Complutense University of Madrid and SpotLab, a company that emerged from the UPM, all of these entities in Spain.

Acute myeloid leukemia or myelodysplastic syndrome are two of the diseases that are in the spotlight of the ALMA project. Its members will investigate new artificial intelligence algorithms to quantify and discover patterns in clinical data and bone marrow images that help to make an earlier and more accurate diagnosis, in addition to predicting the response to treatments.

“The ALMA project is a multidisciplinary project that will use the latest artificial intelligence techniques to apply the results in a field that can have a great impact on the lives of patients,” says María Jesús Ledesma, professor at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros. of Telecommunications (ETSIT). Her work, like that of the rest of the UPM and CIBERBBN researchers involved in the project, will focus on the development of pathology biomarker models using virtual staining techniques.

For the head of SpotLab, Miguel Luengo, the development of “safe artificial intelligence opens new horizons in medicine towards more accurate diagnosis and treatment.” Present in Europe, Africa and Latin America, the technology provided by the consortium’s industrial partner, recently shown at the American Congress of Hematology, is supported by the European Union and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “In the future, doctors will also be conductors of artificial intelligence algorithms,” says Luengo.

Artificial intelligence algorithm classifying cells from a bone marrow sample. (Image: SpotLab)

The ALMA project, which started on May 17 with a first meeting at the ETSIT of its multidisciplinary teams, has more than 35 researchers, including hematologists, biochemists, engineers and experts in artificial intelligence. The Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) and the Center for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI) promote it within the framework of the Strategic Program for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE) for cutting-edge health, financed with the European fund NextGenerationEU . (Source: UPM)