Hello BRIGHT Run Family,
Hope you are enjoying the arrival of Spring.
Since the start of this year, our team, which involves my collaborators and students, has been able to reach various milestones in different projects and has been able to submit our findings for peer review.
The peer-review process of research takes time and often results in improvement of the manuscript that we write. This is because the editorial team provides constructive feedback to improve the work. This peer review is voluntary, and researchers usually like to review papers related to their expertise and interest.
As you know, AI models are expanding in the ways they assist. These models can also help in the process of peer review, if the relevant policy permits.
Since last year, “Agentic AI” has become more common. It represents an AI-based system that can understand a goal, make a plan, and take actions to help you achieve it and not just “chat” about it. Therefore, you can communicate with the system (usually through a chat interface empowered by language models). The agent has access to resources (the supporting knowledge base) and tools (to execute the actions) to be able to act.
Again, when it comes to the area of healthcare, “Agentic AI” systems are being investigated but with caution. We have investigated AI models in agentic capacity within experimental set-up last year. I look forward to sharing more about these in future updates.
Recently, researchers have demonstrated an “Agentic AI” system capable of autonomously navigating significant portions of the scientific workflow, starting from hypothesis generation through managing data collection to manuscript preparation. If AI were eventually able to participate in peer review as well, it could close the loop for machine‑generated research in certain types of studies. This possibility also opens new directions for human–AI collaboration.
Probably, a time will come when I will also mention AI as part of my research team. AI helped draw the attached photo representing the future team.
Looking forward to a smarter future,
Best,
Ashirbani
Dr. Ashirbani Saha is the first holder of the BRIGHT Run Breast Cancer Learning Health System Chair, a permanent research position established by the BRIGHT Run in partnership with McMaster University.
