IRES Track I: International Research Experience for Students on Artificial Intelligence for Congenital Heart Diseases

该IRES项目的目的是为美国学生提供宝贵的研究经验，帮助他们在位于广东省总医院的广东省心血管研究所(GCI)探索治疗先天性心脏病(CHDS)的新型人工智能(AI)算法。位于广州的中国，GGH是中国最大的医院之一，其附属的GCI在心血管疾病研究方面一直位居前三。该项目将每年在全国范围内挑选三(3)名研究生和三(3)名本科生，并支持他们在为期十二(12)周的时间里访问GCI，在身临其境的环境中与世界知名的心血管医学研究人员合作，通过创新的人工智能算法解决一些最关键和最具挑战性的问题，这些算法可以造福于广大CHD患者。CHD是导致出生缺陷死亡的主要原因，在美国，每110例新生儿中就有一例死亡，在发展中国家，这一比例甚至更高。CHD具有很大的结构变异，这使得手动诊断既耗时又繁琐。此外，冠心病最常见的治疗方法是心脏手术，它相当复杂，被广泛认为是外科皇冠上的明珠。目前，只有在冠心病方面有丰富经验的放射科医生和外科医生才能自信地处理这些问题。该项目的结果可能会提高CHD治疗的效果和效率，并使世界各地患有CHD的大量人口受益。该项目还将使美国学生能够与他们在GCI的研究导师合作，对冠心病的人工智能进行高质量的研究。这些经历使他们在职业生涯的关键早期阶段接触到国际研究界。预计通过参加这一项目，美国学生将在医学应用的深度学习研究、国际医疗前景、中国文化以及在国际环境中的表演和合作方面获得丰富的经验。这些经验还将通过个人社交媒体以及为对人工智能感兴趣的全国K-12学生举办的KidAI网络研讨会等外联活动分享给更广泛的社区。为了确保可持续发展，该项目将为参与的学生提供专业发展支持。IRES项目的科学目标是探索创新的人工智能算法，有助于冠心病的诊断、治疗计划和预后。这项拟议的研究通过GCI的医生和IRES工程学领域的访问学生之间的合作，针对急需解决的医学图像处理和冠心病诊断的基本问题。尽管人工智能在普通医学中显示出巨大的潜力，但针对其他疾病开发的现有人工智能算法无法很好地处理CHD中巨大的心脏结构和巨大的血管连接变化。这项拟议的研究将是解决这一挑战的第一项研究，预计将开发创新的算法。同样可以预期的是，随着与中国心血管疾病领先研究小组的密切互动，GCI这些项目取得的突破将对基于人工智能的医学研究、临床使用和社会福利产生直接影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The objective of this IRES project is to provide U.S. students with valuable research experience in the exploration of novel artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms for congenital heart diseases (CHDs) in Guangdong Provincial Cardiovascular Institute (GCI), located at Guangdong General Hospital (GGH). Located in Guangzhou, China, GGH is one of the biggest hospitals in China, and the GCI affiliated with it is constantly ranked top three in terms of cardiovascular disease research. The project will select three (3) graduate students and three (3) undergraduate students nation-wide each year and support them to visit GCI over a period of twelve (12) weeks to work with world-renowned researchers on cardiovascular medicine in an immersive setting, addressing some of the most critical and challenging problems through innovative AI algorithms that can benefit the large population suffering from CHD.CHD is the leading cause of mortality from birth defects, which occurs 1 in every 110 births in the United States, and even more in developing countries. CHD comes with very large structure variations which makes it time-consuming and tedious to diagnose manually. In addition, the most common treatment for CHD is cardiac surgery, which is rather complex and is widely regarded as the jewel in the crown of surgery. Currently, only radiologists and surgeons with extensive experience in CHD can handle them confidently. The outcome of this project will potentially boost the effectiveness and efficiency of CHD treatments, and benefit the large population worldwide who suffer from CHD. The project will also enable U.S. students to conduct high-quality research on AI for CHD, in collaboration with their research mentors at GCI. Such experiences expose them to the international research community at a critical early stage in their careers. It is expected that through participating in this program, U.S. students will gain extensive experience on the research of deep learning with medical applications, on the international healthcare prospects, on Chinese culture, and on performing and collaborating in an international environment in general. The experience will also be shared to the broader community through personal social media as well as outreach events such as KidAI webinars for national K-12 students interested in AI. To ensure sustainability, the project will provide professional development support for the participating students. It will also focus on minorities and underrepresented groups.The scientific objective of this IRES project is to explore innovative AI algorithms that can benefit the diagnosis, treatment planning and prognosis of CHDs. The proposed research, through the collaborationbetween doctors at GCI and the IRES visiting students in the engineering fields, targets fundamentalissues in medical image processing and diagnosis of CHD that need to be addressed urgently. Although AI has shown great potential in general medicine, the large heart structure and great vessel connection variations in CHDs cannot be handled well by existing AI algorithms developed for other diseases. The proposed research will be the first to tackle this challenge and innovative algorithms are expected to be developed. It can also be anticipated that with the close interaction with leading research group on cardiovascular diseases in China, the breakthroughs made from these projects at GCI can have a direct impact on AI-based medicine research, clinic usage, and social welfare.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.