23-AIBIO - Artificial Intelligence in the Biosciences - AIBIO-UK (22-AIBN)

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) methodologies have made significant progress in recent years: AI systems are now being used in a wide range of applications, from self-driving cars to language translation. Recent AI applications to the biosciences have been promising, but efforts have been sparse and uncoordinated, and limited to groups or companies with specific expertise. Our vision is to bring together AI and core bioscience researchers to unravel biological fundamentals and tackle impending societal challenges. The ultimate aim of AIBIO-UK is to enhance AI capabilities within the biosciences. We see this occurring through both upskilling biosciences researchers in practical AI skills (which the community will identify throughout the network lifetime) and knowledge, as well as engaging relevant computational AI researchers in biosciences challenges and needs, which should lead to a critical mass of researchers better able to exploit AI in biosciences. The network will be the "go-to" place for resources at the interface between AI and the biosciences. Importantly, we will also build collaborations around the ethics of AI use.

We see the network's main outcome being to bridge the gap between AI and biosciences, making biosciences a more quantitative discipline through a diverse support programme including but not limited to networking events and training opportunities across career stages, job types and geographical locations. The network will promote a community of interdisciplinary researchers exploiting AI in bioscience by providing a platform for interaction and partnership between AI and bioscience researchers, access to datasets, algorithms, and training materials. The network will have an influence on society and the economy with a change in culture due to an improved understanding, facilitating more effective collaboration, increased casual implementation and job opportunities, and raising the international profile of UK AI capability in bioscience research.