Research Team led by Professor Pheng Ann Heng Receives Grant of over $50 million
A research team led by Prof. Pheng Ann Heng, College Member and Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at CUHK, has been awarded a grant of more than HK$50 million to establish a world-leading Institute of Medical Intelligence and XR that will advance the frontier of artificial intelligence (AI) and extended reality (XR) in medical and healthcare applications, making precision medicine a reality in next-generation healthcare. The grant is the funding results of the Theme-based Research Scheme 2022/23 by the University Grants Committee’s Research Grants Council. It falls under the theme of Advancing Emerging Research and Innovations Important to Hong Kong, one of the four designated research themes under the TRS.
XR refers to all real-and-virtual combined environments and human-machine interactions generated by computer technology and wearables. When integrated with AI, it can play a huge role in medical image computing and computer-assisted intervention in real-world clinical applications. The goals of the Institute of Medical Intelligent and XR are (1) to develop advanced medical image analysis for intelligent personalised diagnosis with high precision, reliability and efficiency; (2) to develop AI-XR interaction and virtual surgery for next-generation visualisation, assessment, treatment coordination, precise planning, and surgical training and education; (3) to develop intraoperative AI-AR assisted surgery for dynamic medical interpretation, efficient execution of surgical plans and real-time fused intraoperative image guidance; and (4) to integrate the above technologies into a multi-faceted pipeline platform for applications in liver and kidney cancer diagnosis, treatment, prognosis and medical training, with the aim of inspiring ideas that will eventually benefit patients.
Congratulations to Prof. Heng and members of the College wish him every success in his research that will definitely benefit the society and those in need!
(Source and Photo Credit: Communications and Public Relations Office, CUHK)
