Thomas J. Fuchs, DSc, Named Dean of AI and Human Health and Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai

Appointment Advances Health System’s Role as Leader in AI and Digital Health

Thomas J. Fuchs, DSc, a prominent scientist in the groundbreaking field of computational pathology—the use of artificial intelligence to analyze images of tissue samples to identify disease and predict outcome—has been appointed Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, Dean of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Health, and Professor of Computational Pathology and Computer Science in the Department of Pathology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In his new role, he will lead the next generation of scientists and clinicians to use machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence to develop novel diagnostics and treatments for acute and chronic disease.

“Thomas Dr. Fuchs has advanced the field of precision medicine through his contributions to artificial intelligence in pathology, helping the health care industry better understand and fight cancer. His expertise will enhance Mount Sinai’s continued efforts to use digital health to train future medical leaders and improve care for our patients,” said Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System. “By building on existing AI and health initiatives, like the Mount Sinai Digital and Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Pathology Center of Excellence, Dr. Fuchs’s guidance, along with shared knowledge and academic excellence from our team of researchers and clinicians, will help revolutionize health care and science, nationally and globally.”

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Thomas Dr. Fuchs’s trailblazing work includes developing novel methods for analysis of digital microscopy slides to better understand genetic mutations and their influence on changes in tissues. He has been recognized for developing large-scale systems for mapping the pathology, origins, and progress of cancer. This breakthrough was achieved by building a high-performance compute cluster to train deep data networks at petabyte scale.

“Mount Sinai is at the forefront of digital health in medicine with an exceptionally talented team driving innovation forward. I am tremendously excited to join them in expanding initiatives and efforts to advance artificial intelligence in human health; the honor of leading this task is utterly humbling,” said Dr. Fuchs. “Together, we will weave a fabric of AI services that help nurses, physicians, and hospital leadership to make personalized decisions for every patient. The key goals are to help especially vulnerable populations, improve treatment for all, and use AI to democratize health care throughout New York and across the globe.”

His vision for Mount Sinai is to further revolutionize medical practice by pushing the boundaries of AI with the ultimate goal of transforming the quality of life and human health for people all over the globe. That vision includes transforming pathology—the study of causes and effects of a disease or injury—from a qualitative to a quantitative science, and empowering more doctors and medical students to use their talent for good by joining the novel field.

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Dr. Fuchs will focus on developing a new system and code for machine learning; large-scale research models and computation; more effectively using data to apply to real-world clinical settings; and continuing to expand the use of computational pathology in treatments through collaboration.

He will co-lead the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, established in 2019 by the Mount Sinai Health System and the Hasso Plattner Institute with generous philanthropic support from the Hasso Plattner Foundation.

“Dr. Fuchs has made key contributions in AI for cancer diagnosis which will be significant as we work to save lives, prevent disease, and improve the health of patients using artificial intelligence in real-time analysis of comprehensive health data from electronic health records, genetic information, and mobile sensor technologies,” said Erwin P. Bottinger, MD, Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai and Professor of Digital Health-Personalized Medicine, Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam, Germany. “As Dr. Fuchs and I collaborate to advance artificial intelligence and machine learning in health care, the institute will continue to be a force in creating progressive digital health services.”

Before joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Fuchs was Director of the Warren Alpert Center for Digital and Computational Pathology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and Associate Professor at Weill Cornell Graduate School for Medical Sciences. At MSK he led a laboratory focused on computational pathology and medical machine learning. Dr. Fuchs co-founded Paige.AI in 2017 and led its initial growth to the leading AI company in pathology. He is a former research technologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and visiting scientist at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Fuchs holds a Doctor of Sciences from ETH Zurich in Machine Learning and a MS in Technical Mathematics from Graz Technical University in Austria.

“We are very pleased to welcome Thomas to our faculty,” said Eric Nestler, MD, PhD, Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience, Director of The Friedman Brain Institute, and Dean for Academic and Scientific Affairs, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “His vast knowledge in data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence will significantly move Mount Sinai forward as a world leader in health care.”

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