The Department of Health and Human Services announced this week that it is doubling its funding of its Childhood Cancer Data Initiative at the National Cancer Institute to promote the development of “improved diagnostics, treatments, and prevention strategies.”
Officials will utilize artificial intelligence to harness the potential of electronic health records and claims data to inform research and clinical trial design, while allowing parents to maintain control over their child’s health information, HHS explained.
“For too long, families have fought childhood cancer while our systems lagged behind,” said HHS Secretary Kennedy. “President Trump is changing that. We will harness American innovation in artificial intelligence to find cures for pediatric cancer.”
Similarly, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya said officials are “dedicated to using every innovative method and technology at our disposal in our fight against childhood cancer.” He noted that by “doubling down on this mission with AI, we are ensuring that state-of-the-art science is being leveraged to provide answers about these diseases that would otherwise be out of reach.”
The effort comes as President Trump signed an executive order to use AI in the quest to end childhood cancer. “This application of AI has the potential to transform the Nation’s current care and research approach for pediatric cancer -– as well as our healthcare and research infrastructure more broadly –- through use of the rich and multimodal data, secured with appropriate individual privacy protections, to develop early and superior diagnostics, identify cures and optimize treatments, and advance medicine that will save lives,” the order says.
The order directs the Make America Healthy Again Commission to use “advanced technologies” like AI to “unlock improved diagnoses, treatments, cures, and prevention strategies for pediatric cancer.”
President Trump’s order bolsters the strategy previously laid out by the MAHA Commission, which described a “specific focus on research that harnesses AI to uncover causes, identify risks early, and take action in childhood and young adulthood to prevent cancer.”
