President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday directing a $50 million investment in using artificial intelligence to cure childhood cancer.
“President Trump’s foresight in his first term to establish the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative to gather, harness, and share data on childhood cancers has positioned us today to leverage AI to revolutionize pediatric cancer care,” Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios told The Daily Signal.
“With America’s pioneering AI models, American researchers now have the best tools in the world to turn the CCDI Data Ecosystem into the building blocks of life-changing breakthroughs,” Kratsios continued.
Trump directed the Make America Healthy Again Commission to work with the Office of Science and Technology Policy to harness artificial intelligence for childhood cancer research.
The order builds on the work Trump began in 2019 to battle childhood cancer. In 2019, he established the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative, which aggregates pediatric cancer data from hospitals nationwide.
In accordance with this order, researchers will deploy artificial intelligence to improve clinical trials, sharpen diagnoses, fine-tune treatments, unlock cures, and strengthen prevention strategies, according to the Office of Science and Technology.
Researchers will use AI to build scalable models to predict how a child’s body responds to therapies, letting doctors forecast cancer progression and minimize treatment side effects, and more.
The order also directs increased investment from existing federal funds for the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative to ensure that the government has the best available data for this initiative.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will fully integrate AI into current work on interoperability to provide data to inform research and clinical trial design in the private sector and academia, according to the order.
