A community to discuss Quantum-based and AI-enabled Health applications.
Dear Nordic colleagues, a warm welcome to our interdisciplinary group of scientists and innovators within Quantum Physics, AI, and Life Sciences!
We have started a Quantum Life Science community in Sweden with a consortium consisting of individuals/patients, academia, healthcare, and industry, where we have representatives from e. g. Wallenberg Center for Quantum Technology, AstraZeneca, IBM, Karolinska Institutet, SAS Institute and Swelife. In our recent meeting at Chalmers, we also had the privilege of having professor John Martinis with us.
We now look forward to sharing knowledge and exploring further possibilities of Quantum Life Science with you, our Nordic colleagues, starting with a Round Table meeting at SAS Institute’s castle in Stockholm on 11–12 of November.
Some examples of the areas where we have/or are starting projects, and would like to collaborate, are the following:
- Quantum Computing for precision health — Göran Johansson, Per Sikora, and Christina Jern et al
- Quantum Microscopy for precision health — Val Zwiller, P-O Berggren, and Erik Aurell et al
- Quantum Spectroscopy for precision health — Stefan Kröll and Emilie Krite Svanberg et al
- Neuromorphic and AI methods for precision health — Karin Westin, Magnus Boman, and Daniel Lundqvist
- Evaluation: Benchmarking protocols and health economy — Igor Pikovski and Erik Aurell
- Implementation: Data interoperability and regulatory aspects — Per Sikora
- Pre-study of the US Quantum Life Science collaboration between Cleveland Clinic, IBM, and SAS Institute, in a Nordic context — Ulf Hertin, Mikael Haglund, and Ebba Carbonnier
The purpose is also to explore additional Life Science problems suitable for Quantum Technologies.
On a more long-term strategic level, our work aims to gradually focus more on keeping our population healthy from a Healthy-Risk-Sick perspective. A large proportion of national budgets and projects are focusing on the Sick-part, but from a system perspective, it is more advantageous to invest in the Healthy part, to do it right from the start. We only spend three percent on prediction and prevention (OECD), although we can prevent 80% of:
- heart disease
- stroke
- type 2 diabetes and
- at least one-third of cancer cases
In this quest, we see that it could be beneficial to use quantum algorithms for computational problems within e. g. the genomics area for prediction and prevention. This would potentially result in further knowledge about why we become sick and how we keep healthy.
Cleveland Clinic has a similar strategy in relation to the Healthy-Risk-Sick perspective, which is called the Left Move. We look forward to discussing this further and the possibilities with Quantum Life Science.
