2020 Responsible Machine Learning Summit: AI and COVID-19
James Zou, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Data Science, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
Where Does the Virus Go Inside Human Cells? ML Model of SARS-CoV-2 Localization
Abstract: It's mysterious what the SARS-CoV-2 virus does once it's inside the host cell. I will discuss our new ML algorithm, RNA-GPS, that models and predicts where RNA sequences physically localize in human cells. RNA-GPS suggests the RNA genome of SARS-CoV-2 hijacks cellular machinery to transport to the mitochondria and nucleolus. Such localization can have important implications for viral biology as well as for treatments. This work is described in https://www.cell.com/cell-systems/fulltext/S2405-4712(20)30237-4. I will also summarize the highlights from our Stanford Data Science and AI for COVID-19 class: https://sites.google.com/view/data-science-covid-19.
Biography: James Zou is an assistant professor of biomedical data science, CS and EE at Stanford University. He is also a Chan-Zuckerberg investigator and the faculty director of Stanford AI for Health. James develops novel machine learning algorithms that have strong statistical guarantees and that are motivated by human health challenges. Several of his methods are widely used by tech, biotech and pharma companies. He also works on questions important for the broader impacts of AI—fairness, accountability, interpretations, and robustness. He has received several best paper awards at top CS venues, the 2019 RECOMB best paper award, a NSF CAREER Award, a Google Faculty Award, and a Tencent AI award. /p>