Number of the Month

1136 days of AI research for public health

To mark the German AI Month mAI 2024, our number of the month this time revolves around Artificial Intelligence. On 24. March 2021, the starting signal was given for the Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Public Health Research (ZKI-PH). It will bundle the RKI's research with AI.

1136 days – in this time, the ZKI-PH  has successfully organized one international symposium, acquired two doctoral cohorts with a total of 17 doctoral students, initiated over 30 projects, published more than 35 publicationsa and works with almost 40 cooperation partners worldwide. In addition, both scientific and non-scientific employees are involved in building up the centre on a daily basis and contribute to its success.

Currently, the ZKI-PH combines four units that combine digital epidemiology, modern data visualisation and big data and systems analysis with AI, machine learning and decision making research. This interdisciplinary collaboration opens up new ways of gaining insights from the constantly growing volumes of data.

These are the units at a glance:

• The ZKI-PH 2 "Phylogenomics" unit develops AI-supported models to analyse the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases by using the interface between phylogenetics and epidemiology and deciphering evolutionary processes of pathogens.
• The unit ZKI-PH 3 "Image Analysis" develops and adapts algorithms for the evaluation of image data from various imaging techniques for public health-relevant topics in order to support infection research and disease diagnostics as well as to analyse satellite data for the investigation of environmental factors for pandemics.
• The ZKI-PH 4 "Climate and Society Analytics" unit develops artificial intelligence methods to integrate the research topics of climate change and public health, develop digital models and early warning systems and strengthen social resilience to climate-related health hazards.
• The unit ZKI-PH 5 "Visualisation" develops computational solutions at the interface of visualisation and artificial intelligence in the context of public health to explain, explore and better understand the inner workings of AI models and data analysis, and to improve the prediction of disease outbreaks.

Along with its colleagues, the ZKI-PH will in future make a significant contribution to the work of the RKI to better understand diseases, prevent epidemics and fight them more effectively.