Faces Of Digital Health

Dr. Marinka Žitnik is a computer scientist from Harvard, studying applied machine learning with a focus on challenges brought forward by data in science, medicine, and health. A large aspect of her work concerns the use of AI for better use of medications - either by analyzing and predicting side effects in polypharmacy or by potentially discovering new indications of combinations of drugs that are already on the market. Dr. Zitnik joined Harvard as an Assistant Professor in December 2019. Before that, she was a postdoctoral scholar in Computer Science at Stanford University. She was also a member of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub at Stanford. Some of her methods are used by major biomedical institutions, including Baylor College of Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stanford Medical School, and Massachusetts General Hospital. In this discussion, she talks about the role of AI in the development of COVID vaccines, the role of AI in drug development, realistic expectations of AI tools we can expect in the next 5 to