Today's Edition
AHMED ABDELAZIZ (ABU DHABI) -
The Sheikh Zayed Institute for Paediatric Surgical Innovation (SZI), hosted in Children’s National Hospital in Washington D.C., has elevated the standards of paediatric surgery, conducting more that 17,000 successful surgeries across several countries in the span of one year.
The institute was made possible by a $150 million grant from government of Abu Dhabi in 2010.
In an exclusive interview with Aletihad, Dr. Mariuas George Linguraru, Endowed Chair of Research and Innovation at Children’s National Hospital, said, “Children’s National – the home of Sheikh Zayed Institute – is ranked in the top five pediatric hospitals in the United States, and performs more than 17,000 surgeries a year.”
Syndrome Detection
SZI also pioneered the development of “mGene,” an innovative tool that aids in the detection of Down’s syndrome and another genetic disorders, which is particularly challenging when the medical profiles of children from diverse backgrounds do not align with conventional medical protocols.
Supported by funding from the UAE’s Ministry of Health and the collective effort of numerous emirates, SZI’s researchers devised a platform trained on thousands of images of children from over 30 countries - including the UAE - to determine a child’s risk for genetic disorders, ensuring that they receive the care needed to improve their quality of life and extend their life expectancy - sometimes by decades.
AI Helps Paediatricians
Dr. Linguraru remarked, “With our partners around the world, but particularly in the UAE, we built an app -a training programme - and trust in AI technology that works. Our success with this project can be used anywhere around the world, and it will save entire lifetimes.”
In June 2023, SZI hosted an inaugural symposium on AI in Pediatric Health and Rare Diseases, where scores of medical AI technology were unveiled.
“As a population, kids are vastly underrepresented in scientific research and resulting treatments, but paediatric specialties can use AI to provide medical care to children more efficiently, more quickly, and more effectively,” Dr. Linguraru said.
In 2021, the SZI team published the results of a groundbreaking study on COVID-19 Lung CT Lesion Segmentation, centred on the development of AI models for visualising and measuring COVID-19-specific lung lesions in infected patients. This challenge garnered participation from over 1,000 global experts, utilising a diverse dataset provided by the U.S.’s National Institutes of Health. This initiative showcased AI’s ability to analyse patients of varying ages, genders, and disease severities, underscoring its potential in advancing healthcare outcomes.
SZI’s work spans various domains, encompassing medical robotics, precision medical imaging, computer vision and robotics, pain medicine research, paediatric cardiac physiology and electrophysiology, 3D cardiac visualisation, and immunology, among others.
