Hemoglobinopathies are a set of inherited diseases characterized by unusual production or arrangement of the hemoglobin molecule. According to WHO, it affects approximately 5% of the world's population, resulting in 300,000-400,000 children born yearly with a severe hemoglobin disorder, prevalently in low-income countries.

The project (AI-HEMO) will provide new cost-effective screening possibilities for hemoglobin disorders, reducing health expenditures related to lifelong treatments, especially where there is limited access to modern diagnostics.

Izabela Nielsen and her team - the Operations Research Group -  develops AI-based decision (support) tools for situations where making mistakes has severe consequences, focusing on topics with great societal value.

• They do it for medicine to support decision making processes and insight into what parameters are indicators for specific diseases and risks.
• They do it for aerospace and space where operations have extreme safety requirements also for the AI
• ...and they do it for planning Search & Rescue missions, where speed and quality of decisions are critical for survivability.

Using this expertise, Izabela and the Operations Research Group, will develop and implement a robust AI/ML-based methodology to support classification of carriers of specific genes based on low-cost tests.

Interdisciplinary research

The multidisciplinary consortium will be led by Izabela in strong collaboration with Prof. Tarec Christoffer El-Galaly (Aalborg University Hospital) and Assoc. Prof. Sören Möller (University of Southern Denmark) and includes clinicians, AI/ML experts and biostatisticians from Aalborg University, Aalborg University Hospital, University of Southern Denmark, Copenhagen University Hospital, Odense University Hospital, Aarhus University Hospital, PGIMER, NIIH, Christian Medical College, NRS Medical College & Hospital.

Thanks to the Novo Nordisk Foundation for supporting the project.