VCU and QU in Machine Learning and AI Healthcare Collaboration

Dr. Ryad Ghanam, Professor of Mathematics at our Liberal Arts and Sciences department; and Dr. Edward Boone, Professor at the Department of Statistical Sciences and Operations Research at VCU’s College of Humanities and Sciences, in Richmond, are collaborating with scholars from Qatar University (QU) to use various machine learning algorithms and possibly artificial intelligence regimes to improve human health.

Researchers at QU are working on relating various genetic, metabolic, and proteomic measurements to predict the risk of heart attacks, stroke, atherosclerosis, and diabetes. They have all the measurements of these factors (in fact there are hundreds of these factors) and are trying to make sense of how to relate these factors to disease status.

The Mathematical Data Science Lab, which is led by Ryad and Edward, is collaborating with QU’s researchers to build an effective model for this study.

“We are dealing with big data and need to develop machine learning techniques such as Linear Discriminant Analysis and Support Vector Machines to handle this situation. I am very grateful to VCUarts Qatar and Qatar Foundation for providing me with the necessary resources to be able to carry out the calculations and advance my research,” Dr. Ghanam said.

The collaboration is a prime example of how our Mathematical Data Science Lab (which is part of VCUarts Qatar’s Institute for Creative Research) can have a strong impact on the research being conducted in Qatar, and also on research that has the potential to improve human health.