Lekadir, Karim
ICREA Research Professor at Universitat de Barcelona (UB).
Engineering Sciences
Short biography
Research interests
Over the last five years, I developed the concept of “inclusive” artificial intelligence for future medical applications that will benefit populations, societies and health systems at large.
This line of research is well exemplified by my ERC Consolidator Grant, entitled “Inclusive Artificial Intelligence for Accessible Medical Imaging Across Resource-Limited Settings (AIMIX)”. This ERC is developing novel approaches to build AI tools for remote rural areas of Africa, where there is limited data, low quality equipment, and minimally trained clinical workers. My team recently published an adaptive deep learning model for guiding midwives during fetal ultrasound screening, which was demonstrated in five African countries (Uganda, Ghana, Malawi, Egypt and Algeria) [Sendra et al. Scientific Report 2023].
As another example, I am the Project Coordinator of the RadioVal Horizon Europe project, which is developing inclusive AI tools for treatment planning in breast cancer that can be applied across a diversity of populations and clinical centres, both across Europe (Spain, Sweden, Austria, Poland, Croatia) and beyond Europe (Argentina, Egypt, Turkey). As part of the project, my team recently published a new approach to generate AI models with enhanced fairness with respect to patients with highly dense breasts (particularly prevalent in under-represented Black and young patients) [Garrucho et al., Frontiers in Oncology 2023].
Beyond these examples, over the last five year I became Principal Investigator for 11 EU-funded projects, totalling ~10.2 million Euros (5 as Project Coordinator, 4 as WP Leader, 1 as Task Leader, and 1 ERC). My research output increased exponentially across all indicators (4 best paper awards, 1st place in 2 benchmarking competitions, >100 papers, >3,000 citations). I founded one of the most dynamic labs in Europe (www.bcn-aim.org), consisting of 27 research members (15 female and 12 male, from Europe, North America, South America, Africa and Asia).