dkNET Investigators Join New NIH ODSS AI Award for T1D

dkNET investigators Drs. Shuibing Chen and Wei Wang are part of new award of $1,983,847 from the Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS) of the NIH, to conduct a project titled “Co-designing Ethical Multimodal AI Systems for Mapping T1D Progression” (OT2OD038003).  The amount is for a one-year support, and the project is renewable for a second year.  The project is led by contact PI Dr. Jie Liu at the University of Michigan.  This is an interdisciplinary collaborative effort of investigators from several NIDDK funded consortia programs.  Other MPIs include: Dr. Stephen Parker at the University of Michigan, Dr. Marcela Brissova at Vanderbilt University, Drs. Kenneth Young and Dena Tewey at the University of South Florida, and Dr. Kai-Wei Chang at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). 

Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune disease and the second most common chronic condition in children.  In past several decades, a considerable amount of data has been generated, most notably from concerted efforts by programs such as the Human Islet Research Network (HIRN), The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young (TEDDY), the Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet, and the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), all of which are supported in full or in part by the T1D Special Diabetes Program.  The team plans to leverage such datasets, develop a Multimodal AI - from Data to Knowledge system, and carry out proof-of-principle work that tests the system’s use in comprehensively characterizing T1D etiology, mapping disease progression, precise staging of T1D, and developing personalized prevention/treatment for T1D. Along the way, they will also develop innovative co-design approaches to address several challenges in biomedical AI research including ethical concerns related to privacy, fairness, transparency, and accountability.

Scientific oversight of the project will be provided collaboratively by the ODSS, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). 

The Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS) leads the NIH Strategic Plan for Data Science through scientific, technical, and operational collaboration with the institutes, centers, and offices that comprise NIH.  This project is funded through its Advancing Health Research through Multimodal AI Initiative. 

NIDDK investigators have a history of successfully competing for the NIH ODSS funding opportunities.  In 2022, Dr. Raghu Mirmira at the University of Chicago and Dr. Bobbie-Jo Webb-Robertson at the Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL) received a supplemental award of $401,273 from the ODSS to improve the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML)-readiness of data generated in their HIRN-CBDS project titled “The Integrated Stress Response in Human Islets During Early T1D” (U01DK127786).  In 2024, Drs. Stephen Parker and Jie Liu at the University of Michigan received a supplemental award of $300,000 to their PanKbase project titled “PanKbase: a community hub for integrated pancreas knowledge (U24 DK138515), to improve interoperability and integrability of the Pancreas Knowledge Graph (PanKgraph) component with the knowledge graphs of the NSF Prototype Open Knowledge Network (Proto-OKN) program.  In the same year, Dr. Marcela Brissova at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Anna Glyn at Stanford University, and Drs. Stephen Parker and Jie Liu at the University of Michigan, were part of a $492,000 supplement award to TEDDY (U01DK128847, contact PI Dr. Jeffrey Krischer at the University of South Florida) to develop Common Data Elements (CDEs) for T1D.