Inside STAT: An AI expert's toughest project: writing code to save his son's life

MATT MIGHT WORKS AT HIS SON’S BEDSIDE AT CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL OF ALABAMA IN BIRMINGHAM. (COURTESY MATT MIGHT)

When 11-year-old Buddy Might became sick with an unexplained illness, his doctors struggled to figure out how to treat the medically complex child beyond inserting tubes to drain his fluid-filled lungs. But there was an unlikely helper waiting in the wings: an AI program that happened to be developed by the boy’s father. Matthew Might runs the Precision Medicine Institute at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and he and his team had been working on an experimental program to help clinicians identify connections between genes, proteins, and other biochemicals to better understand the roots of disease and come up with treatments. And although he wasn't planning on it, his son's sudden illness became a test of the AI system's ability to help patients facing medical emergencies. Read more from STAT’s Casey Ross on how, from thousands of results, Might found an answer to save his son’s life