WESTPORT, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Epistemic AI (EAI) announced that through its collaboration with the Boomer Esiason Foundation (BEF), and the leadership of Dr. Raouf Amin at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, that the Cincinnati Children’s Division of Pulmonary Medicine will use the EAI platform to augment and accelerate their research in Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and respiratory disease. The BEF venture philanthropy initiative helped bring this enhanced capability to the Cincinnati Children’s staff.
BEF has an existing partnership with EAI to augment CF research using artificial intelligence (AI) to help improve knowledge discovery. The EAI platform connects the dots across multiple disciplines in the life sciences and provides rapid insight into the underlying relationships among disease, diagnosis, treatment, and biological function.
In the fall of 2021, the EAI Platform was initially demonstrated to Dr. Amin and his staff of over 40 faculty members. The shared goal of this ambitious collaboration is to support clinical researchers in the Pulmonary Medicine Department of Cincinnati Children’s with advanced tools to access CF-related knowledge in basic research, clinical trials and treatments, as well as existing CF research on rare genetic mutations and pathogens.
According to Stefano Pacifico, CEO, and co-founder of Epistemic AI, “this confirms EAI’s commitment to support clinical research in cystic fibrosis. Our AI platform dramatically accelerates biomedical research, by integrating human intelligence with easily accessible yet complex technology, ultimately to benefit CF patients.”
Gunnar Esiason, Executive Vice President, Strategy & Advocacy for BEF, commented: "By accelerating cystic fibrosis research, we come closer to finding a cure and treating patients currently affected by the disease. We believe that the use of AI can accelerate this process. Our venture philanthropy initiative at the Boomer Esiason Foundation demonstrates our long-term commitment to improve CF research, and we believe that the Epistemic AI platform can be a catalyst that helps many researchers and clinicians. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital has been a long-standing partner of the Foundation, and we are thrilled to reaffirm our commitment to the Hospital and CF Center by providing cutting edge tools to advance their work."
The current partnership between BEF and Epistemic AI began in 2020 and is an on-going effort to improve access to information using AI for the CF community. The partnership enables EAI to collaborate with foundations, companies, and hospitals to foster a consortium of knowledge discovery that will help to advance and expedite CF-related discoveries.
About Cystic Fibrosis
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an inherited condition that primarily affects the lungs and digestive system of about 35,000 children and adults in the United States. People living with CF spend a great deal of time completing a variety of treatments and medications to maintain their health. Due to excess mucus build up, a CF patient’s lungs often become infected with bacteria that can be life threatening.
Cystic fibrosis is characterized by progressive damage to the respiratory system and chronic digestive system problems. In recent years our understanding of CF has grown substantially, leading to improved outcomes, treatments, and diagnosis. Among many different achievements, current research is focused on new treatments, and stratifying patients with rare mutations who can benefit from CFTR modulators.
About the Boomer Esiason Foundation
In 1993, Gunnar Esiason – son of former NFL MVP quarterback Boomer Esiason – was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Boomer and his wife Cheryl founded the Boomer Esiason Foundation to raise funds and awareness for the cystic fibrosis community. The Foundation has raised over $150 million to date. To learn more, visit esiason.org.
About Epistemic AI
Founded in 2018, Epistemic AI is the research intelligence platform for the life sciences. The state-of-the-art AI platform eliminates common technology barriers in research by effectively unlocking silos of information that can potentially deliver better cures. Epistemic AI works with academia, foundations, and biopharma companies to help advance their efforts in R&D, drug discovery, clinical trials, and commercialization. To learn more, visit epistemic.ai
