Researchers are developing an AI app that can help identify diseases. Interestingly, researchers are using several human voices that will be instrumental in developing AI-based technologies that could potentially help identify major illnesses such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Human voices could be used to identify diseases. 

The NIH-funded project unveiled on September 13, 2022, seeks to use human voices to measure diseases similar to temperature and blood. 

Laryngologist Dr Yael Bensoussan, head of the University of South Florida’s Health Voice Center and a leading researcher, claims everything from vocal cord vibrations to breathing patterns. At the same time, someone speaks can offer information about one’s general health.

Weill Cornell Medicine’s Institute for Computational Biomedicine and one of the initiative’s researchers, Olivier Elemento, said that what is important about voice is that it is among the cheapest data kinds one can collect from individuals. Dr Bensoussan added that it is accessible data sort that you may get from a patient. 

The study is sponsored by the Bridge2AI project of the National Institutes of Health, which prioritizes studies that offer morally sound, rigorous, and easily accessible data that may be utilized to develop AI capabilities. According to the study’s preamble, it will run for four years and might get around $14 million in funding.

Researchers to create an app to collect vocal  information 

In order to collect speech information from individuals with illnesses like vocal fold paralysis, pneumonia, anxiety, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and autism, the researchers will first create an app. Then, a clinician will monitor all audio recordings. For instance, Bensoussan says somebody with Parkinson’s disease could have a low voice and speak softly. Then, using the application, they will ask to pronounce sounds and read complete messages.

Although scientists have previously used AI to analyze individuals’ voices, this study, a collaboration between USF, Cornell, and eleven other universities, will be the first to collect data on this magnitude.

Its ultimate goal is to develop an app that could assist general practitioners in connecting patients with specialists, hence facilitating access to isolated or underserved populations.