The Duke Department of Medicine hosted its Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Medicine Symposium on Friday morning, January 30, 2026, in the Trent Semans Center Great Hall.
Leaders from across the School of Medicine and Duke Health shared how AI is transforming medicine and biomedical research, and how AI is being applied in practice, education, and research.
Strategic planning was the theme for presentations and a panel discussion that focus on communication and connectedness, followed by an AI resource fair.
Highlights included sessions on how to make AI work for you that covered cloud infrastructure and Microsoft Integration, AI education and training initiatives, and the usability of AI Tools in practice, and a session on clinical AI, AI evaluation and governance frameworks.
Department leaders convened a panel on artificial intelligence in research, emphasizing problem-first thinking, data stewardship, and smart industry partnerships. Speakers highlighted infrastructure, training across careers, and practical AI uses to reduce administrative burden, accelerate studies, and protect faculty and patient data rights ethics.
The morning concluded with an AI clinical research panel moderated by Dr. Chris Lindsell that covered industry partnerships with Emily Norborge, chief research informatics officer at Duke Cancer Institute, health research collaborations with Benjamin Goldstein, PhD, professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, and Corrie Ennis, assistant dean, Research Systems, Strategy and Innovation, Duke School of Medicine
“It’s an AI world and one thing that is a little bit more unique without particularly generative AI is the reusability of these cases across so many different things,” Norborge said, citing the great job that Duke Cancer Institute has done leveraging an AI model to help with clinical trial matching. The idea, she said, is by being able to match more patients to clinical trials, revenue can be generated through sponsors to support the work and over time be able to staff the work.
“I think taking into account limited funding responsibility and infrastructure AI gives us an opportunity to really diversify our revenue sources and reduce our costs,” she added.