Oxford researchers have welcomed the UK government’s new AI for Science Strategy, which sets out an ambitious plan to harness artificial intelligence, sovereign supercomputing and high-quality scientific data to accelerate discovery in the life sciences.
The strategy recognises the importance of AI-ready datasets, powerful national compute resources such as Isambard-AI and Dawn, and a highly skilled workforce able to work across AI and biomedical science. Researchers across the Nuffield Department of Medicine (NDM) noted that these priorities align strongly with the direction of ongoing research in Oxford.
NDM Associate Professor and medical oncologist Dr Lennard Lee, Centre for Immuno-Oncology, who contributed evidence to the strategy, emphasised the particular opportunity for cancer research. “I welcome the government’s commitment, a key next step could be the development of a national AI-ready Cancer British Atlas - a coordinated, high-quality dataset bringing together genomics, immune responses, pathology, imaging and clinical outcomes. Linked to sovereign AI compute, this would radically accelerate our ability to design and test future cancer vaccines.”
Oxford researchers and partners are already demonstrating what this approach can deliver through the UK Cancer Vaccine AI & Supercomputing Project, which uses national GPU resources to build immune and genomic AI models that support the development of personalised and preventative cancer vaccines.
Dr Lee added “With the right data infrastructure alongside the new national computing capabilities, researchers across the UK will be able to move from scientific insight to new treatments far more rapidly. We look forward to working with government and partners to help realise this ambition.
When asked what this means for cancer research specifically, Dr Lee concluded, “...this means faster identification of cancer vaccine targets, improved prediction of treatment response, more efficient development of clinical trials tailored to the right patient groups. Ultimately it means better survival for patients.”
Read more about the Ai for Science Strategy here.