The Computational Medicine Podcast Dr Alex Davidson

Dr Anders Sandberg is a senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University. His work is wide ranging, including the societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement and new technology, as well as assessing the capabilities and underlying science of future technologies. His research includes work on cognitive enhancement and technical roadmaps on whole brain emulation, neuroethics, and global catastrophic risks. 

We discussed the roadmap to whole brain emulation, defining consciousness, the ethical and cultural implications of whole brain emulation, attitudes towards cryonics and death and lots more.

You can find Dr Anderes Sanberg at:
Twitter: @anderssandberg
Website: www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/team/anders-sandberg/

You can find me at:
Twitter: @Dr_AlexDavidson
Website: www.alexdavidson.me


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Fin Moorhouse is a researcher at Longview Philanthropy. Before that, he was a Research Scholar and assistant to Toby Ord at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute. He co-hosts a podcast called Hear This Idea, about about ideas for solving important problems, and the people working on them ranging form AI safety, Biorisk to global development. He writes about effective altruism, existential risk, and ways to improve the (longterm) future on his writing page. 


We discussed his work an lessons from his podcast guests, his thoughts on Effective Altruism. Other key insights from podcasting. How it might be worth investing in clean air for our health and AI Safety. 
He also :
Is a fellow on this ‘Roots of Progress’ writing fellowshipContinues to informally work with (and learn from) Toby OrdThinks about some EA project ideas I’d like to help make happenResearched space governance as an EA cause area (and now advise a couple groups which were since established)Worked on a policy brief about a UN Declaration on Future GenerationsHelped set up a contest to support EA criticism

You can find Fin at:
Twitter: @finmoorhouse
Website: https: www.finmoorhouse.com

You can find me at:
Twitter: @Dr_AlexDavidson
Website: www.alexdavidson.me
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Jess Morley is a PhD student at the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University. Her work focuses on  understanding the ethical, philosophical and practical ramifications of the increasing use of technology in healthcare. She was The lead tech advisor for data-driven technology at UK Department of Health and Social Care. She was a contributor towards the Goldachre review which looked at the efficient and safe use of health data for research and analysis and how this can benefit patients and the healthcare sector, and was originally commissioned by the Secretary of State for Health and Care in February 2021. It was published on gov.uk in April 2022. We discussed her current work, what are the key factors that make a medical AI paper effective and where healthcare data will be going in the future.

You can find Jess Morley at:
Twitter: @jessRmorley
Website: https: www.healthdatanerd.org

You can find me at:
Twitter: @Dr_AlexDavidson
Website: www.alexdavidson.me


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Dr James Zou is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Data Science and Computer Science at Stanford University. He works on making machine learning more reliable, human-compatible and statistically rigorous. He received his Ph.D from Harvard in 2014, and was at one time a member of Microsoft Research, a Gates Scholar at Cambridge and a Simons fellow at U.C. Berkeley. 

He joined Stanford in 2016 and his research is supported by the Sloan Fellowship and the Google and Tencent AI awards.

He recently published a very high quality paper looking at using EchoNet, an AI model to help interpret echocardiogram scans that was published in Nature medicine. It showed that AI saved clinician time and had as good scan interpretation as echocardiogram sonographers. One of the key factors that made this paper so effective was the fact that it was randomized , blinded and prospective. Factors that often are not present in medical papers but are crucial to make the evidence of what they show robust. We discussed his work on EchoNet and similar projects, what factors he considers are important in making effective medical AI papers and where he sees these models being deployed in the future.

You can find Dr James Zou at:
Twitter: @james_y_zou
Website: https: www.james-zou.com

You can find me at:
Twitter: @Dr_AlexDavidson
Website: www.alexdavidson.me
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Dr. Adam Bataineh is co-Founder of Span Health, a health coaching company driven by data to improve longevity. The company's primary goal was to enhance human performance by assisting members in improving their sleep, nutrition, and exercise routines through scientifically based experiments. In 2022, Span Health was acquired by Eight Sleep for an undisclosed sum.
What makes Adam particularly intriguing is his role as a pioneer in the field of Medicine. While Longevity is not typically recognized as a specialized area in the UK, Adam has carved out his own unique niche. Enhancing people's longevity and healthspan requires not only a comprehensive understanding of human physiology but also a deep comprehension of behavioral psychology. Adam focuses on motivating individuals to take actions today that their future selves will be grateful for.
In other words, instead of merely addressing problems as they arise, doctors like Adam strive to prevent or at least delay those problems from occurring in the first place. During our conversation, we delve into Adam's journey and his approach to establishing Span Health. We also explore his methods for optimizing longevity and touch upon some of the personal experiments he has conducted. I hope you find this discussion enjoyable.

You can find Adam at:
Twitter: @DrAdamBat
Website: https://www.numenor.health/

You can find me at:
Twitter: @Dr_AlexDavidson
Website: www.alexdavidson.me


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Vivek Natarajan is an AI researcher at Google Health working to accelerate biomedical AI’s translation from code to clinic and scale world-class healthcare to everyone. In this episode we spoke about about his work in helping to build MedPalm 1 and 2. The two best general medical machine Learning models right now are GPT4 and MedPalm 2 built by Google with both scoring >85% on the USMLE and similar other medical exams. Vivek tells us how his team at Googlehealth built MedPalm 1 and 2 and where he sees similar models being deployed in medicine in the near future.

You can find Vivek Natarajan at:
Twitter: @vivnat
Website: natviv.me

You can find me at:
Twitter: @Dr_AlexDavidson
Website: www.alexdavidson.me



Support the show