Photo: UHH/Denstorf
28 February 2025, by Abt. 5
Photo: UKE/Kirchhof
Few topics have received as much recent public attention as the advancement of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The potential for a wide range of applications in various areas of life and society has sparked interest and discourse across the globe. The vast possibilities for impact – such as in applications related to medical treatment or diagnostics – highlight the importance of research collaboration that brings together diverse groups of researchers from a variety of fields in order to explore these potential applications from all angles.
Through the European University Alliance for Global Health (EUGLOH), 28 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from eight universities across Europe had the opportunity to come together at a newly opened building devoted to research at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) from 5 to 7 February 2025 in order to do just that. As part of a collaboration with EUGLOH partners, the University of Hamburg’s Hub of Computing and Data Science (HCDS) and bAIome - the Center for Biomedical AI at the UKE, an intensive three-day workshop was designed to give participants the opportunity to take part in hands-on projects in small teams that each examined a particular project topic that could be tackled over the course of a few days of intense focus.
The topics covered by the project teams were numerous, including the mathematical modeling of data related to inflammatory diseases as well as the use of machine-learning techniques for drug response prediction based on data related to gene expression. Additional topics included the potential application of deep learning-based image analysis to microscopy images in order to identify features from tissue biopsies and representation learning for multimodal images taken by different sensors.
On the last day of the intensive workshop, the teams presented the results of their work, with many participants also emphasizing their interest in the continuation of such research in order to potentially contribute to improved health outcomes for patients through the use of machine-learning techniques. In evaluations following the workshop, participants also emphasized the importance of their participation in the workshop for building and expanding their own international networks, along with improving their subject-specific knowledge.
“I think the biggest takeaway is the connection with international people interested in the same topics as me,” said Pablo Legerén Somolinos, PhD student of Applied Artificial Intelligence at the University of Alcalá. “Machine learning is a hot topic right now and it was helpful to have the opportunity to work closely with professionals of my field abroad.”
The project leads and event organizers also viewed the workshop as a success. “Everything worked wonderfully,” said Dr. Anna Reinicke-Vogt, immunologist and research coordinator at bAIome. “So many different people came together with their different research backgrounds and harmonized very well with each other. It is essential to have these types of interactions in order to exchange with and learn from each other.”
Prof. Dr. Marina Zimmermann, junior professor at the Institute of Medical Systems Bioinformatics at the UKE who also led one of the project teams, agreed that the combination of participants from various fields – from biology to engineering – within the same team contributed to the success of the interactions within the group and the overwhelming impression that everyone was there to learn from each other.
The organizers hope to carry this collaborative momentum into the future with additional workshops. Further impressions from this most recent workshop can also be found on the websites of the HCDS and bAIome.
