iHEALTH Brings Together Over 100 Attendees at Workshop on AI in Medical Imaging
The event, held at the Pontificia Universidad Católica, showcased national advances in artificial intelligence applied to radiology, cardiac MRI, language models, and assisted diagnosis, awarding the best work by students and early-career researchers.
The Millennium Institute in Engineering and Artificial Intelligence for Health (iHEALTH) brought together over one hundred professionals, academics, and students at the workshop “AI in Medical Imaging: Latest Developments and Future Directions in Latin America”, held on December 11 at the Salón de Honor San Alberto Hurtado of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, located on the Casa Central Campus.
The scientific-technical event served to present some of the most significant advances across the various research lines pursued by the center, positioning iHEALTH as a national reference in the application of artificial intelligence in the field of medical imaging.
Presentations Reflecting the Institute's Work
The program included presentations by iHEALTH principal and associate investigators, who provided an overview of the work developed by the institute across various areas related to the use of engineering and artificial intelligence tools in medical imaging:
- “AI in shaping the future of 4D Flow”, by principal investigator Julio Sotelo (Department of Computer Science, UTFSM).
- “Creating cardiovascular digital twins from MRI across physics”, presented by principal investigator Francisco Sahli (Department of Mechanical and Metallurgical Engineering & IIBM, UC).
- “The potential impact in medical imaging diagnosis of recent LLMs and LMMs”, by principal investigator Denis Parra (Department of Computer Science, UC).
- “Sound Renaissance in Medicine: Towards Better Ultrasound Applications”, by associate investigator Rodrigo Cádiz (Department of Electrical Engineering & Institute of Music, UC).
Furthermore, the event featured two keynote lectures with distinguished guests in the field: “AI in Medical Imaging: Paradise or Apocalypse”, by Professor Thomas Küstner (Group Leader, Medical Image and Data Analysis, University Hospital of Tübingen), and “Opportunities and Challenges to Adopt AI in Clinical Radiology Practice in Chile and Latin America”, by Dr. Pablo Soffia (Head of the Imaging Department, Clínica Alemana / Universidad del Desarrollo). Both sessions provided attendees with national and international perspectives on medical imaging research in Chile and the world.
Awards for Young Researchers
One of the central pillars of the workshop was the presentation of work by undergraduate and graduate students, as well as pre- and postdoctoral researchers from the institute. Following an evaluation, the following projects were awarded:
- First Place: Tomás Banduc, with the work “Estimating Cardiac Motion in Patients with Myocardial Infarction from Cine MRI Using Physics-Informed Neural Networks”.
- Second Place (tie): Diego Campanini (“Towards a Multimodal Large Language Model for Characterization of Prostate Lesions on MRI”) and Pablo Messina (“CURE: Curriculum-guided Multi-task Training for Reliable Anatomy Grounded Report Generation”).
- Third Place: Matías Paredes, with “Motion-Corrected Deep-Learning Reconstruction Framework for fast 3D Whole-Heart MRA at 0.55T”.
Discussion on the Regional Future
The activity concluded with a discussion panel titled “Future Directions of AI in Medical Imaging in Latin America”, moderated by iHEALTH Director Claudia Prieto, and featuring researchers Marcelo Andia, Cecilia Besa, Domingo Mery, and Jaime Retamal.
The workshop, which combined talks, rapid-fire presentations, a poster session, and networking spaces, reinforced iHEALTH’s mission to promote interdisciplinary research and train advanced human capital at the intersection of artificial intelligence, engineering, and health.
