The Health Pulse S2E6: Improving Maternal Health through AI and Biomedical Science

In this episode, Greg speaks with Professor Patricia Maguire, Director of University College Dublin’s Institute for Discovery. The Institute’s mission is to drive interdisciplinary research at UCD. Maguire is a biomedical scientist. Her research focuses on platelets, an interest that began 25 years ago when her father suffered his first heart attack and she recognized the need for better diagnostics in the clinic.Maguire explains that platelets circulate in our blood, picking up information along the way, which makes them a ready source of biomarkers. In one project, Maguire’s team works closely with three large maternity hospitals in Dublin, Ireland, on a study that has found new diagnostic markers for preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is a huge problem worldwide, affecting one in ten pregnancies, and killing 50,000 women and 500,000 babies and causing 5 million premature births each year, according to Maguire. Her team’s goal on the project is to bring diagnostic data from blood platelets together with all other available data on a mother during pregnancy and apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to extract insights that can be delivered to a clinician to inform critical care decisions, such as when a baby should be born. The analysis of multimodal data that can then be delivered to the computer screen of a clinician is an experience Maguire describes as augmented intelligence to support clinical decision making.Maguire says the ultimate dream of the team on this project is to partner with government and industry to bring the preeclampsia algorithm and diagnostic product to every woman who needs it around the world, saving lives. She also shares her thoughts on the importance of democratizing AI and analytics to improve knowledge sharing and collaboration from academia into the real world.A transcript of this episode can be found here.All presentations represent the opinions of the presenter and do not represent the position or the opinion of SAS.