Precision health and AI the future for healthcare in New Zealand

One-size-fits-all medicine is killing us: How precision health can save us

For too long, healthcare has relied on trial and error - testing one drug or treatment option on a patient, and if that doesn’t work, switching to a second option, or a third. It’s a method that’s neither conducive to healthy people nor a healthy system. Precision health offers a better way forward by harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) and genomics to deliver faster, more accurate, and personalised care.

In this talk, Associate Professor Chris Paton will demystify AI in healthcare, explaining how it's already helping doctors diagnose, treat, and manage diseases. He’ll explore how we can ensure AI is safe and effective, and what it means for the future of healthcare delivery.

Professor Justin O’Sullivan, Director of the Liggins Institute, will showcase cutting-edge applications of AI in acute care, including diagnosing rare diseases in newborns and identifying brain tumours. He’ll highlight how mapping our DNA empowers us to take control of our health, and why speed and accuracy are critical in building a healthier healthcare system.

Dr Roan Zaied will discuss her work on the complex lung disease COPD. Using machine learning - a form of AI that learns patterns from data – she can combine information like age, smoking history, sex, CT scans, and genetic data to predict who might be at risk.

Join us at 6pm on Thursday August 14 for an inspiring and insightful evening. You’re warmly invited to stay for drinks and nibbles afterwards.

About the speakers

Professor Justin O’Sullivan (above left) is a molecular microbiologist/computational biologist and Director of the Liggins Institute. Justin has honorary appointments at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, the University of Southampton, and A*STAR Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, Singapore. Justin leads multi-omic research that focuses on our interactions with the microbiome, complex genetic diseases, and acute care genome sequencing.

Dr Chris Paton (above centre)is an Associate Professor at the Liggins Institute and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His work focuses on how AI technology can be used to improve healthcare systems around the world. He is Editor in Chief of the BMJ Digital Health & AI journal and a member of the Health Systems Collaborative at the University of Oxford.

Dr Roan Zaied (above right)is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Liggins Institute with a Bioinformatics MSc from the University of Glasgow and a PhD in Biomedical Science from the University of Auckland. Her research focuses on understanding complex disease heterogeneity. Her recent work combines genetic data and lung CT scans to develop machine learning models for predicting chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).