The University of Arizona has awarded nearly $1 million in seed funding to 12 transdisciplinary research teams developing artificial intelligence tools to improve diagnosis, treatment, patient care and medical training.

The projects, selected from 60 proposals submitted from across the university, include efforts to create patient-specific digital twins for surgical training, predict how colorectal cancer patients will respond to specific therapies and identify early warning signs of heart failure before patients require emergency care.

The Exploratory Projects in AI and Health Seed Grants are part of a university-wide effort led by the Office of Responsible AI. The projects are funded through the Regents' Future Opportunity Initiative Fund, a $20 million investment from the Technology and Research Initiative Fund approved by the Arizona Board of Regents in February 2025 to advance high-impact research in areas of strategic importance to Arizona.

“We encouraged teams to think boldly, pursue innovative ideas and build collaborations that extend beyond traditional boundaries,” said David Ebert, the university’s inaugural chief AI officer, who also leads the Office of Responsible AI. “By fostering this kind of convergent research, we can accelerate discoveries, improve health outcomes and create new opportunities for impactful research that benefits communities in Arizona and beyond.”

Teams were selected for their transdisciplinary approach, bringing together expertise in medicine, public health, engineering, data science, law and the humanities. Projects that also demonstrated collaboration with healthcare systems, clinical providers, startups, businesses or national laboratories were prioritized to ensure that discoveries transition into real-world impact. 

“Health shapes every moment of how we live, connect and make decisions; it’s far too complex for any single discipline,” said Tomás Díaz de la Rubia, senior vice president for research and partnerships. “By weaving responsible AI into areas from behavioral science to ethics and communication, the University of Arizona is breaking past the traditional boundaries of medicine to advance research that helps build a healthier, more resilient and better‑informed society.”

The Awarded Projects

The 12 funded research teams and the U of A experts leading them include:

• Leveraging Multimodal AI to Standardize Deceased Donor Kidney Evaluation: Bekir Tanriover, College of Medicine – Tucson; with Ali Bilgin, College of Engineering; Marek Rychlik, College of Science; and Maryam Emami, College of Medicine – Tucson.
• AI-Driven Surgical Excellence: Multimodal Digital Twins in Surgical Training: Ehsan Azimi, College of Engineering; with Eduardo Blanco, College of Science; Geoffrey Gurtner, College of Medicine – Tucson; and Iman Ghaderi, College of Medicine – Tucson.
• Deep Learning for Congestive Heart Failure and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Exacerbation Prediction: Joseph Finkelstein, Telemedicine; with Aref Smiley, Telemedicine; Christian Bime, College of Medicine – Phoenix; Arista Chand, College of Medicine – Tucson; Sandesh Dev, College of Medicine – Tucson; Ambar Andrade, College of Medicine – Phoenix; Xuan Lu, College of Information Science; and Saeed Akbarishandiz, College of Medicine – Tucson.
• AI-Driven Image Classification for Deep Vein Thrombosis Diagnosis: Eung Joo Lee, College of Engineering; with Srikar Adhikari, College of Medicine – Tucson.
• AI-Based Prediction of Drug Response in Colorectal Cancer: Marwan Krunz, College of Engineering; with Curtis Thorne, College of Medicine – Tucson.
• Remote Ecosystem for Physics-Aware Intelligent Rehabilitation (REPAIR): Christopher Arellano, College of Medicine – Tucson; with Nicholas Adam Bonazza, College of Medicine – Tucson; and Janet Roveda, College of Engineering.
• Cultivating Expertise in AI-Assisted Spine Surgery: Daniel Menchik, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences; with Richard Chua, College of Medicine – Tucson.
• Differential Diagnostics of Neurological Disorders with AI: Martha Bhattacharya, College of Science; with Travis Wheeler, R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy; and Holli A. Horak, College of Medicine – Tucson.
• Precision Equanimity: AI-Enabled Disentanglement of Metabolic and Psychophysiological Arousal for Real-Time Stress Regulation: Chang-Chun Chen, College of Engineering; with Richard Lane, College of Medicine – Tucson; John JB Allen, College of Science; Janet Roveda, College of Engineering; and Shu-Fen Wung, College of Engineering.
• Multimodal Radiomics for Knee Osteoarthritis Phenotyping: Xiaoxiao Sun, Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health; with Kent Kwoh, College of Medicine – Tucson; Chiyoung Lee, College of Nursing; and Yong Ge, Eller College of Management.
• Transforming Health Science Communication Education via GenAI: Xiao Hu, College of Information Science; with Nicole P. Yuan, Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health; Srikar Adhikari, College of Medicine – Tucson; and Yin Chen, R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy.
• The Transparency Backfire Problem in Healthcare AI: Martin Reimann, Eller College of Management; with Oliver Schilke, Eller College of Management.

The Responsible AI in Health Innovation Nexus

The Responsible AI in Health Innovation Nexus serves as a cross-campus catalyst, accelerating convergent research and clinical innovation. By connecting faculty, clinical partners, tribal governments, regulatory agencies and funders around a shared mission, the Nexus ensures that the university's capabilities translate into AI-driven health solutions that reach the people who need them.

The initiative builds on the university’s health research infrastructure, including its five health science colleges, Arizona's only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, the BIO5 Institute, the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Biostatistics, and Tech Launch Arizona, to ensure that the research path leads to patients. 

Seed grants are the starting point. Awardees are expected to use the funding to generate preliminary results, build external partnerships and pursue larger grants from federal agencies, private foundations and industry sponsors.

If successful, these projects will change lives. They will produce new tools for diagnosing disease earlier, treatments built around the individual patient, advances in surgical training and broader access to care—demonstrating how AI can improve health outcomes while remaining grounded in ethical, human-centered research.