Mines Helps Drive South Dakota's Medical Innovation Through University Collaboration

South Dakota Mines recently received a $1.49 million grant to enhance the state’s medical education and biomedical advances through computation and artificial intelligence.

The $1.49 million is part of a total $6.5 million partnership, led by the University of South Dakota (USD) and the Sanford School of Medicine, to establish a Biomedical Computation Collaboration.

The three-year grant, funded through the Department of Education, was spearheaded by U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, according to Jeffrey McGough, Ph.D., Mines head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

“His goal is to really raise the level of what we are doing in health sciences statewide with a focus on AI and computation,” McGough said of Rounds’ initiative.

The collaboration is in the early stage, with the three universities exploring which exciting aspect of biomedical computation to dive into first.

“The scope of the grant runs from basic science such as better understanding of how certain gene sequences affect illness to doing more data based preventive medicine to how do we build better information systems to communicate medical advances to health care providers,” McGough said. 

McGough explained that the $6.5 million DOE grant serves as initial seed money to jumpstart the collaboration, with plans to seek additional funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to sustain and expand the partnership.

“It’s just exciting to get this team together. We all bring different tools to the table,” McGough said. “As an engineering school, we contribute our simulation, computation, and theoretical expertise, aiming to explore foundational technologies like drug design and AI tools."

McGough expressed hope that this partnership will propel Mines into deeper involvement in health science research.