As the digital world is evolving, Artificial Intelligence is rapidly revolutionising the medical industry by having the potential to save lives of current and future patients. This CONNECT University explored the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the future of healthcare, presenting the major role that AI has in diagnosing and preventing diseases. Ethical issues in the application of AI to healthcare were also included in the discussion.

Speakers:

• Lucilla Sioli, Director DG CONNECT A. Artificial Intelligence & Digital Industry

Title of the presentation: Using AI to help tackling Covid-19

Ms Lucilla Sioli is the Director for "Artificial Intelligence and Digital Industry" within Directorate-General CONNECT at the European Commission. She is responsible for the coordination of the European digitisation of industry strategy and for policy development in the area of artificial intelligence (AI). The directorate also supports R&D&I in key digital industrial technologies including microelectronics, photonics, robotics and AI. Lucilla holds a PhD in economics from the University of Southampton (UK) and one from the Catholic University of Milan (Italy) and has been a civil servant with the European Commission since 1997.

• Yiannos Tolias, Legal Officer, DG SANTE B3 European Reference Networks and Digital Health

Title of the presentation: How do AI Machines Perform Medical Tasks

Yiannos is a lawyer working in DG SANTE (European Commission) in the team dealing with AI, Data and Liability in Healthcare. He was a Senior Emile Noël Fellow at New York University (NYU) Law School working on a research project on machine learning in medicine and law; prior to joining the Commission he was an assistant professor of EU law at the University of Edinburgh after graduating with a Ph.D. in EU constitutional law.

• Stefano Stramigioli, Full Professor for Advanced Robotics, University of Twente

Title of the presentation: The AI and Robotics revolution for Healthcare innovation, facts and fictions

Stefano Stramigioli received the M.Sc. with honors (cum laude) in 1992 and the Ph.D with honors (cum laude) in 1998. He is currently full professor in Advanced Robotics. He is an IEEE Fellow, an ERC AdG laureate and member of the Royal Holland Society of Science and Humanities (KHMW). He is currently serving as the Vice President for Research of euRobotics, the private part of the PPP cooperation with the European Commission known as SPARC, the biggest robotic civil program worldwide.  Among a number of awards, he received the 2009  IEEE-RAS distinguish service award.

He is currently leading a growing group of about 50 people (http://www.ce.utwente.nl). He has been Editor in chief of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, which he brought from the seventh to the first place in the ranking of the Impact Factor among all journals on Robotics. He has furthermore been  Editor in Chief of the IEEE ITSC Newsletter and guest editor for others. He is member of the Editorial Board of the Springer Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics.

He has been an AdCom member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, he has been the founder and chair of the Electronic Products and Services of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and he has been serving as Vice President for Membership of the same society for two consecutive terms.  He is involved in different projects related to Control and Robotics for medical & inspection applications.

Nationally has been the founder and chair of RoboNED, the national platform coordinating all academic, industrial and governmental institutions on Robotics and responsible for producing a Strategic Research Agenda for Robotics for the Netherlands and he is one of the initiator of the LEO (www.leo-robotics.eu) robotics center, the first robotic center in the Netherlands.  and he is a member of the 3TU Center of Excellence on Intelligent Mechatronics Systems. He has been teaching Modeling, Control and Robotics for under and post-graduates. He has around 300 publications including 4 books.

• Gastone Ciuti, Associate Professor of Bioengineering at The BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy

Title of the presentation: Endoo: a new robotic platform for painless colonoscopy

Prof. Dr. Eng. Gastone Ciuti (Male, born in 1983) received the master’s degree (with Hons.) in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pisa (Italy) in 2008 with a thesis entitled “Study and development of endoscopic robot with locomotion based on permanent magnetic field”, carried on at CRIM (Center for Research in Microengineering) Laboratory of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa, Italy), and winning the Master Thesis Price (8th edition) of the Gruppo Nazionale di Bioingegneria (GNB) in 2008. In the same year, he joined the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna as a PhD student and in 2012 he obtained the PhD (with Hons.) in Innovative Technologies of Info. & Com. Eng. and Robotics at The BioRobotics Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, defending a thesis entitled “Innovative control platform for robotic microsystems in endoluminal surgery”. In 2013, Gastone Ciuti performed an Executive Master in Project Management (QUEC, Quality Evolution Consulting S.r.l., Lucca, Italy) for improving his knowledge and expertise in managing national and international research projects. On January 1st, 2014, he became Assistant Professor (RTD-A) at The BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna and since November 1st, 2016, Gastone Ciuti was Assistant Professor (tenure track – RTD-B) of Biomedical Robotics at The BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy. Since November 1st, 2019, Gastone Ciuti is Associate Professor of Bioengineering at The BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy. Gastone Ciuti is head of the Computer-Integrated Technologies for Robotic Surgery Laboratory, The Surgical Robotics and Allied Technologies Area, coordinating or co-coordinating today a team of almost 25 research fellows. In 2010, Gastone Ciuti has been research fellow at the MED Lab, Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee, USA), in 2011 research fellow at The Hamlyn Centre, Imperial College London (London, UK) and between 2017 and 2018 visiting professor at the Beijing Advanced Innovation Centre for Intelligent Robots and Systems, Beijing institute of Technology (Beijing, China). He was visiting professor from mid-November 2019 to mid-December 2019 at the Sorbonne Université (Paris, France) working on the research topic of microbiome endoscopic capsules. Gastone Ciuti has a growing track record in integrating robotics and surgery disciplines with a particular focus on collaborative medical robotics, computer-assisted platforms and endoscopic robots, and in this field, he is co-authoring high-impact publications indexed in Q1 of Scimago categories. 

Background information

This session is part of the CONNECT University Autumn School on Digital Health open for everyone. Check the full programme.