The promise, perils, and policy options for AI in health care

The Science, Technology, and Policy Program (STPP) is pleased to welcome visiting scholars Katerina Sideri (Panteion University of Social and Political Science) and Andreas Panagopoulos (University of Crete), alongside UM Law Professor Nicholson Price, for a engaging panel discussion moderated by STPP Faculty Director Shobita Parthasarathy.

From the speakers' bios:

Andreas Panagopoulos is a Professor of Economic Analysis at the Economics Department, University of Crete. He is the founder and director of TECHNIS, a research platform that connects scholars working on innovation and promotes the diffusion of ideas via webinars through an open network, where anyone can propose speakers. His research interests focus on innovation and intellectual property, with emphasis on AI, health policy and technology transfer.

At U-M Professor Panagopoulos plans to work on the latest incarnation of AI on health, digital twins (DTs). His aim, along with coauthor and STPP Faculty Director, Shobita Parthasarathy, is to understand how DTs may affect the US and EU healthcare systems in different ways, and the ensuing political and economic implications for healthcare in general.

Dr. Katerina Sideri is a Fulbright visiting scholar working on the politics of synthetic health data (data that mimic real patient records in a privacy preserving manner). She is an associate Professor at Panteion University in Athens, Greece. Dr. Sideri's research interests focus on bioethical dimensions of personalized medicine, patent regimes (CRISPR, digital pills), AI in health, data governance, and the ethics of innovation, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.

Her work at U-M will be to conduct a set of interviews with FDA officials to understand the subjective choices made in the process of building a standard of credibility and she is also interested in making comparisons with the system in the EU.

Nicholson Price is a Professor of Law and a Professor of Learning Health Sciences at the University of Michigan. He studies how law shapes biomedical innovation, especially medical AI. His work has appeared in Science, Nature, JAMA, NEJM, and leading law reviews. He teaches patents, health law, life sciences innovation, AI law, and science fiction and the law. He was awarded Second Best Zombie at the 10th Annual Grossmann Fantastic Film and Wine Festival in Ljutomer, Slovenia. Nicholson is a Senior Fellow at the University of Copenhagen's Center for Advanced Studies in Bioscience Innovation Law and a Celadon Fellow at Seoul National University's Center for Trustworthy AI. He holds a Biological Sciences PhD and a JD from Columbia.

Shobita Parthasarathy is Professor of Public Policy and Women's and Gender Studies, and co-founder and director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, at University of Michigan. She studies the political economy of innovation and innovation policy with a focus on equity as well as the politics of evidence and expertise in policymaking, in comparative and international perspective.

A science and technology studies scholar, Professor Parthasarathy is the author of numerous articles and two books. Her second book, Patent Politics: Life Forms, Markets, and the Public Interest in the United States and Europe, (University of Chicago Press, 2017) won the 2018 Robert K. Merton Prize from the American Sociological Association. Her first book, Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of Health Care (MIT Press, 2007) helped to inform the 2013 US Supreme Court case over gene patents. Parthasarathy is currently working on two books. The first examines why technological innovation has failed so many and what we can do about it, and the second focuses on the politics of inclusive innovation initiatives in India. She also directs University of Michigan's Technology Assessment Project, which recently published a report on the implications of large language models, a type of generative artificial intelligence.

Earlier in her career, Prof. Parthasarathy held postdoctoral fellowships at Northwestern University, the University of California—Los Angeles, and University of Cambridge. She has also worked for the National Academy of Sciences, RAND, Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the White House Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. She holds Masters and PhD degrees in Science and Technology Studies from Cornell University and a Bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of Chicago

We appreciate our co-sponsors: the Center for History, Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, and Ethics in Medicine (CHHASSEM), the Digital Studies Institute (DSI), Michigan Institute for Data and AI in Society (MIDAS), and the Science, Technology, and Society Program (STS).

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CHHASSEM

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