About Our Partnership

Columbia University's medical center (CUIMC) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have teamed up to help find and develop new ways to detect and diagnose diseases.

The collaborative agreement will support scientific discovery, innovation, and commercialization

Through this engagement, Columbia researchers will have access to AWS cloud and AI technology, allowing them to use large, complex sets of data faster, build models that predict health outcomes and turn their findings into real improvements in patient care.[PI1] 

The collaboration covers every stage of research, from early exploration all the way to launching products. Specifically, AWS will provide cloud computing access to:

  • Early career faculty working on discovering new disease markers
  • Faculty conducting sponsored research and testing whether their ideas work
  • Faculty building startup companies based on their discoveries

AWS will also help build a secure online research portal designed to meet CUIMC's strict requirements for protecting sensitive biomedical data and staying compliant with healthcare regulations.

“CUIMC is committed to equipping our research community with world-class computational resources, including through strategic collaborations with leading innovators such as AWS,” says Despina Kontos, PhD, Chief Research Information Officer, CUIMC. “Scientists are increasingly dependent on AI and other cloud-based technologies to speed imaging analysis, identify biomarkers, and analyze massive datasets. This collaboration will give our scientists broad access to the web-based cloud computing and machine learning tools that are fundamental to developing diagnostics and individualized treatment protocols.”

AWS will support activities including the CIMBID & AWS Junior Scholars program, which will help early-career scholars accelerate technical skill development in cloud computing, data science, and related disciplines through hands-on experience with AWS cloud technologies. AWS experts will work with the CUIMC community to provide training on recent innovations in AWS artificial intelligence, machine learning, and high-performance computing services.

"AWS’s commitment builds on CUIMC's bold scientific vision and will help advance state-of-the-art research innovation that addresses today’s most pressing health challenges while preparing the next generation of researchers," said Kim Majerus, Vice President of Global Education and Local Government at AWS. "We're proud to deepen our collaboration with CUIMC, bringing the power of the cloud to help researchers accelerate discovery, scale breakthrough innovation, and advance new approaches to understanding and treating disease."

“This collaboration will help strengthen the CUIMC research ecosystem by providing infrastructure for advancing Columbia’s AI strategy in the health sciences,” said Noémie Elhadad, PhD, Vice Dean for AI Initiatives at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. “This collaboration will help our researchers develop and deploy AI solutions more effectively, while maintaining essential rigor and security.”

“Our collaboration with AWS will give researchers at CUIMC access to AI tools and resources that are critical for conducting ground-breaking biomedical and clinical research, further advancing Columbia University’s leadership as a world-class research institution,” said Jeannette Wing, PhD, Executive Vice President for Research and professor of computer science at Columbia.

For more information, contact:
Helen Garey, CUIMC Media Relations
hbg3@cumc.columbia.edu

 

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