U of T receives $200-million grant to support Acceleration Consortium's ‘self-driving labs’ research

The University of Toronto has been awarded a $200-million grant from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) to revolutionize the speed and impact of scientific discovery through its Acceleration Consortium.

Business Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

 

IMAGE: ALÁN ASPURU-GUZIK POSING WITH A ROBOTIC ARM IN THE MATTER LAB. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO BY LIZ BEDDALL, COURTESY OF CIFAR

The University of Toronto has been awarded a $200-million grant from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) to revolutionize the speed and impact of scientific discovery through its Acceleration Consortium. The funding – the largest federal research grant ever awarded to a Canadian university – will support the consortium’s work on “self-driving labs” that combine artificial intelligence, robotics and advanced computing to discover new materials and molecules in a fraction of the usual time and cost. Applications include everything from life-saving medications and biodegradable plastics to low-carbon cement and renewable energy.

Researchers in the consortium recently revealed that they used the technology to develop a potential cancer drug in just 30 days – a process that typically takes years, or even decades.

“The University of Toronto is grateful for this significant investment in artificial intelligence-driven research and innovation, which promises to improve the lives of Canadians and those of people around the world,” said U of T President Meric Gertler.

“The federal government’s critical support of this initiative builds on years of strategic planning and decisions in this space by the University and the federal government, including the 2017 launch of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy that helped cement Toronto’s status as a global hub for a revolutionary technology.

“This is the next step in achieving that bold vision.”

François-Philippe Champagne, minister of innovation, science and industry, announced the U of T funding alongside 10 other large-scale projects across the country.

“The initiatives announced today will lead to breakthrough discoveries that will improve people’s lives, nourish our innovation ecosystems, and shape Canada’s prosperity for years to come,” he said in a statement. “Such is the value of Canadian institutions and researchers who think outside the box to tackle the greatest challenges of our time.”

Launched as an Institutional Strategic Initiative in 2021, the Acceleration Consortium brings together partners from academia, government and industry who are accelerating the discovery of materials and molecules needed for a sustainable future. The consortium aims to reduce the time and cost of bringing advanced materials to market, from an average of 20 years and $100 million to as little as one year and $1 million.  

“Our goal is to accelerate science,” said Acceleration Consortium Director Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a professor in the departments of chemistry and computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science who is a CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. “To do that, we realized we need to take a cue from self-driving cars and extended that concept to a self-driving lab, which uses AI and automation to carry out more experiments in a smarter way.

“We’ve essentially supercharged the process of scientific discovery.”

A self-driving lab capable of automated liquid dispensing, solid dispensing, and high-throughput batch synthesis which is connected to the automated purification, and optical characterization setup.

CREDIT

Photo by Johnny Guatto © The Matter Lab / Acceleration Consortium, University of Toronto

The CFREF funding, along with additional support from U of T – which includes an investment of $130 million to expand facilities to house the Acceleration Consortium’s state-of-the-art labs at the Lash Miller Chemical Laboratories building on the St. George campus – will help secure the researchers, spaces and partnerships needed to build a world-leading centre for accelerated materials discovery and innovation.

The funding will also help the consortium rapidly create high quality datasets to better train AI models and validate the model’s predictions in real time. That, in turn, will dramatically accelerate the discovery and development of molecules and materials for a wide range of industries.

With a strong plan of equity, diversity and inclusion guiding project implementation and research design, the initiative will commercialize ethically designed technologies and materials to benefit society and train today’s scientists with the skills they need to advance the emerging field of accelerated materials discovery. It will also allow the consortium to examine critical issues regarding the application of the technology, including from environmental and Indigenous perspectives.

“With this funding – which enabled us to obtain matching commitments of about $300 million from all our partners – we are talking about half a billion dollars of investments, said Aspuru-Guzik, who joined U of T from Harvard University in 2018 as a Canada 150 Research Chair in Theoretical and Quantum Chemistry and is one of a growing number of global experts at the Acceleration Consortium.

“This will help us make the Greater Toronto Area and Canada world leaders in AI-frontier discovery – we have no excuse not to be after this project.”

The Acceleration Consortium comprises nearly 100 researchers – and is hiring many more – across a wide variety of disciplines, including AI, computer science, mathematics, chemistry, economics, engineering, materials science, mechatronics, biology, pharmacology, robotics, technoscience and more. It also includes 30 partners from the private and public sector, including the University of British Columbia, a lead partner on the grant.

“What’s unique about this model is that it’s kind of this idea of a university without borders,” said Jason Hein, Acceleration Consortium’s associate director of academic partnerships and an associate professor in the chemistry department in the Faculty of Science at UBC.

“What happens a lot in Canadian research culture is that we’re good at punching above our weight class, but, in the past, other countries have had bigger budgets. What’s great about this is that through the energy of the people at Acceleration Consortium, we’re saying, ‘We’re doing something huge here.’ And to get the vote of confidence back saying, ‘Yes, we believe in you and let’s go forward’ is really important.”

CFREF aims to boost the strengths of Canadian postsecondary institutions so that they can achieve global success in research areas that create long-term social and economic advantages for Canada. It invests approximately $200 million per year (or approximately $1.4 billion over a competition cycle of seven years) through a highly competitive peer review process.

“We named this a consortium and not an institute for a reason,” Aspuru-Guzik said. “We are a global effort with its homebase in Toronto that involves academia, government and industry.

“A core goal of our efforts is to spin out the next generation of companies that will develop the materials for the 21st century here in Canada. This, in turn, will help make the GTA the economic epicentre for this field.”

Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives, said the impact of the CFREF grant will be felt far beyond Acceleration Consortium itself.

“This level of investment can really transform how universities do innovation,” she said. “It allows us to not only drive forward discovery, but also improve adoption by Canadian companies and foster an ethical approach to technology development that’s guided by principles of equity, diversity and inclusion, benefiting all segments of society.”

Structured exploration allows biological brains to learn faster than AI

Scientists discover exploratory actions make learning more efficient

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SAINSBURY WELLCOME CENTRE

 

IMAGE: MOUSE EXPLORING THE ENVIRONMENT TO LEARN HOW TO NAVIGATE AROUND AN OBSTACLE IN THE WAY TO A SHELTER view more 

CREDIT: SAINSBURY WELLCOME CENTRE

Neuroscientists have uncovered how exploratory actions enable animals to learn their spatial environment more efficiently. Their findings could help build better AI agents that can learn faster and require less experience.

Researchers at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre and Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit at UCL found the instinctual exploratory runs that animals carry out are not random. These purposeful actions allow mice to learn a map of the world efficiently. The study, published today in Neuron, describes how neuroscientists tested their hypothesis that the specific exploratory actions that animals undertake, such as darting quickly towards objects, are important in helping them learn how to navigate their environment.

“There are a lot of theories in psychology about how performing certain actions facilitates learning. In this study, we tested whether simply observing obstacles in an environment was enough to learn about them, or if purposeful, sensory-guided actions help animals build a cognitive map of the world,” said Professor Tiago Branco, Group Leader at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre and corresponding author on the paper.

In previous work, scientists at SWC observed a correlation between how well animals learn to go around an obstacle and the number of times they had run to the object. In this study, Philip Shamash, SWC PhD student and first author of the paper, carried out experiments to test the impact of preventing animals from performing exploratory runs. By expressing a light-activated protein called channelrhodopsin in one part of the motor cortex, Philip was able to use optogenetic tools to prevent animals from initiating exploratory runs towards obstacles.

The team found that even though mice had spent a lot of time observing and sniffing obstacles, if they were prevented in running towards them, they did not learn. This shows that the instinctive exploratory actions themselves are helping the animals learn a map of their environment.

To explore the algorithms that the brain might be using to learn, the team worked with Sebastian Lee, a PhD student in Andrew Saxe’s lab at SWC, to run different models of reinforcement learning that people have developed for artificial agents, and observe which one most closely reproduces the mouse behaviour.

There are two main classes of reinforcement learning models: model-free and model-based. The team found that under some conditions mice act in a model-free way but under other conditions, they seem to have a model of the world. And so the researchers implemented an agent that can arbitrate between model-free and model-based. This is not necessarily how the mouse brain works, but it helped them to understand what is required in a learning algorithm to explain the behaviour.

“One of the problems with artificial intelligence is that agents need a lot of experience in order to learn something. They have to explore the environment thousands of times, whereas a real animal can learn an environment in less than ten minutes. We think this is in part because, unlike artificial agents, animals’ exploration is not random and instead focuses on salient objects. This kind of directed exploration makes the learning more efficient and so they need less experience to learn,” explain Professor Branco.   

The next steps for the researchers are to explore the link between the execution of exploratory actions and the representation of subgoals. The team are now carrying out recordings in the brain to discover which areas are involved in representing subgoals and how the exploratory actions lead to the formation of the representations.

Graphical depiction of a mouse navigating to shelter

CREDIT

Julia Kuhl

This research was funded by a Wellcome Senior Research Fellowship (214352/Z/18/Z) and by the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre Core Grant from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and Wellcome (090843/F/09/Z), the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre PhD Programme and a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society (216386/Z/19/Z).

Source:

Read the full paper in Neuron: ‘Mice identify subgoal locations through an action-driven mapping process’ DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.03.034

Media contact:

For more information or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact:

April Cashin-Garbutt
Head of Research Communications and Engagement, Sainsbury Wellcome Centre
E: a.cashin-garbutt@ucl.ac.uk T: +44 (0)20 3108 8028

About the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre
The Sainsbury Wellcome Centre (SWC) brings together world-leading neuroscientists to generate theories about how neural circuits in the brain give rise to the fundamental processes underpinning behaviour, including perception, memory, expectation, decisions, cognition, volition and action. Funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and Wellcome, SWC is located within UCL and is closely associated with the Faculties of Life Sciences and Brain Sciences. For further information, please visit: www.sainsburywellcome.org

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JOURNAL

Neuron

DOI

10.1016/j.neuron.2023.03.034 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Mice identify subgoal locations through an action-driven mapping process

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Apr-2023

Disclaimer: A

Comparing physician and AI chatbot responses to patient questions

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: In this study of 195 randomly drawn patient questions from a social media forum, a team of licensed health care professionals compared physician’s and chatbot’s responses. The chatbot responses were preferred over physician responses and rated significantly higher for both quality and empathy. Further exploration of this technology is warranted in clinical settings, such as using chatbot to draft responses that physicians could then edit. Randomized trials could assess further if using AI assistants might improve responses, lower clinician burnout, and improve patient outcomes. 

Authors: John W. Ayers, Ph.D., M.A., of the University of California San Diego, La Jolla, is the corresponding author.

(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1838)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1838?guestAccessKey=cc017939-cb8d-4cf0-bf64-11492a83ade0&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=042823

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JOURNAL

JAMA Internal Medicine

Study finds ChatGTP outperforms physicians in providing high-quality, empathetic advice to patient questions

While AI won’t replace your doctor, the JAMA Internal Medicine paper suggests physicians working together with technologies like ChatGPT may revolutionize medicine

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO

La Jolla, Calif. (April 28, 2023) — There has been widespread speculation about how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) assistants like ChatGPT could be used in medicine. 

A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine led by Dr. John W. Ayers from the Qualcomm Institute within the University of California San Diego provides an early glimpse into the role that AI assistants could play in medicine. The study compared written responses from physicians and those from ChatGPT to real-world health questions. A panel of licensed healthcare professionals preferred ChatGPT’s responses 79% of the time and rated ChatGPT’s responses as higher quality and more empathetic. 

“The opportunities for improving healthcare with AI are massive,” said Ayers, who is also vice chief of innovation in the UC San Diego School of Medicine Division of Infectious Disease and Global Public Health. “AI-augmented care is the future of medicine.” 

Is ChatGPT Ready for Healthcare?

In the new study, the research team set out to answer the question: Can ChatGPT respond accurately to questions patients send to their doctors? If yes, AI models could be integrated into health systems to improve physician responses to questions sent by patients and ease the ever-increasing burden on physicians.

“ChatGPT might be able to pass a medical licensing exam," said study co-author Dr. Davey Smith, a physician-scientist, co-director of the UC San Diego Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute and professor at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, “but directly answering patient questions accurately and empathetically is a different ballgame.” 

“The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated virtual healthcare adoption,” added study co-author Dr. Eric Leas, a Qualcomm Institute affiliate and assistant professor in the UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science. “While this made accessing care easier for patients, physicians are burdened by a barrage of electronic patient messages seeking medical advice that have contributed to record-breaking levels of physician burnout.”

Designing a Study to Test ChatGPT in a Healthcare Setting

To obtain a large and diverse sample of healthcare questions and physician answers that did not contain identifiable personal information, the team turned to social media where millions of patients publicly post medical questions to which doctors respond: Reddit’s AskDocs. 

r/AskDocs is a subreddit with approximately 452,000 members who post medical questions and verified healthcare professionals submit answers. While anyone can respond to a question, moderators verify healthcare professionals’ credentials and responses display the respondent’s level of credentials. The result is a large and diverse set of patient medical questions and accompanying answers from licensed medical professionals.

While some may wonder if question-answer exchanges on social media are a fair test, team members noted that the exchanges were reflective of their clinical experience. 

The team randomly sampled 195 exchanges from AskDocs where a verified physician responded to a public question. The team provided the original question to ChatGPT and asked it to author a response. A panel of three licensed healthcare professionals assessed each question and the corresponding responses and were blinded to whether the response originated from a physician or ChatGPT. They compared responses based on information quality and empathy, noting which one they preferred.

The panel of healthcare professional evaluators preferred ChatGPT responses to physician responses 79% of the time. 

“ChatGPT messages responded with nuanced and accurate information that often addressed more aspects of the patient’s questions than physician responses,” said Jessica Kelley, a nurse practitioner with San Diego firm Human Longevity and study co-author.   

Additionally, ChatGPT responses were rated significantly higher in quality than physician responses: good or very good quality responses were 3.6 times higher for ChatGPT than physicians (physicians 22.1% versus ChatGPT 78.5%). The responses were also more empathic: empathetic or very empathetic responses were 9.8 times higher for ChatGPT than for physicians (physicians 4.6% versus ChatGPT 45.1%). 

“I never imagined saying this,” added Dr. Aaron Goodman, an associate clinical professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine and study coauthor, “but ChatGPT is a prescription I’d like to give to my inbox. The tool will transform the way I support my patients.”

Harnessing AI Assistants for Patient Messages  

“While our study pitted ChatGPT against physicians, the ultimate solution isn’t throwing your doctor out altogether,” said Dr. Adam Poliak, an assistant professor of Computer Science at Bryn Mawr College and study co-author. “Instead, a physician harnessing ChatGPT is the answer for better and empathetic care.”

“Our study is among the first to show how AI assistants can potentially solve real world healthcare delivery problems,” said Dr. Christopher Longhurst, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Digital Officer at UC San Diego Health. “These results suggest that tools like ChatGPT can efficiently draft high quality, personalized medical advice for review by clinicians, and we are beginning that process at UCSD Health.” 

Dr. Mike Hogarth, a physician-bioinformatician, co-director of the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute at UC San Diego, professor in the UC San Diego School of Medicine and study co-author, added, “It is important that integrating AI assistants into healthcare messaging be done in the context of a randomized controlled trial to judge how the use of AI assistants impact outcomes for both physicians and patients.”  

In addition to improving workflow, investments into AI assistant messaging could impact patient health and physician performance. 

Dr. Mark Dredze, the John C Malone Associate Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins and study co-author, noted: “We could use these technologies to train doctors in patient-centered communication, eliminate health disparities suffered by minority populations who often seek healthcare via messaging, build new medical safety systems, and assist doctors by delivering higher quality and more efficient care.” 

In addition to Ayers, Poliak, Dredze, Leas, Kelley, Goodman, Longhurst, Hogarth and Smith, authors of the JAMA Internal Medicine paper, “Comparing Physician and Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Responses to Patient Questions Posted to a Public Social Media Forum” (JAMA Intern Med. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1838), are Zechariah Zhu of  UC San Diego and Dr. Dennis J. Faix of the Naval Health Research Center. 

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JOURNAL

JAMA Internal Medicine

DOI

10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1838 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Comparing Physician and Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Responses to Patient Questions Posted to a Public Social Media Forum

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Apr-2023

COI STATEMENT

Disclosures as reported in the paper: Dr Ayers reported owning equity in companies focused on data analytics, Good Analytics, of which he was CEO until June 2018, and Health Watcher. Dr Dredze reported personal fees from Bloomberg LP and Sickweather outside the submitted work and owning an equity position in Good Analytics. Dr Leas reported personal fees from Good Analytics during the conduct of the study. Dr Goodman reported personal fees from Seattle Genetics outside the submitted work. Dr Hogarth reported being an advisor for LifeLink, a health care chatbot company. Dr Longhurst reported being an advisor and equity holder at Doximity. Dr Smith reported stock options from Linear Therapies, personal fees from Arena Pharmaceuticals, Model Medicines, Pharma Holdings, Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Evidera, Signant Health, Fluxergy, Lucira, and Kiadis outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported.

Treatment of children with ADHD

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: The results of this study of children with parent-reported attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suggest that most were not receiving ADHD medications and had never received outpatient mental health care. Gaps in treatment, which were not directly associated with socioeconomic disadvantage, underscore the challenges of improving communication and access to outpatient mental health care for children with ADHD. 

Authors: Mark Olfson, M.D., M.P.H., of Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York, is the corresponding author. 

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.10999)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

#  #  #

 http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.10999?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=042823

About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

Bentley University study shows NIH investment in new drug approvals is comparable to investment by pharmaceutical industry

Government provides early investment in pharmaceutical innovation

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BENTLEY UNIVERSITY

BENTLEY UNIVERSITY

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) spent $187 billion for basic or applied research related to 354 of the 356 drugs approved by the FDA from 2010-2019, according to a new study from Bentley University’s Center for Integration of Science and Industry. The study, published in JAMA Health Forum, shows that the amount invested per approved drug by the NIH is comparable to that of reported investment by the biopharmaceutical industry. The article, titled “Comparison of research spending on new drug approvals by the U.S. National Institutes of Health versus industry, 2010-2019,” is the first to compare the total value of NIH and industry investments taking into account actual spending on research related to approved products and failed product candidates as well as the time-value of these investments.

This paper estimated actual NIH spending of $1.4 billion for each approved first-in-class drug. The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (CSDD) has estimated actual industry spending to be $1.5 billion per approved drug. Considering also a 3% annual discount, per drug investment by the NIH was $1.7 billion. NIH spending provided cost savings to industry of $2.9 billion per approved drug (calculated with a 10.5% annual cost of capital), which is comparable to the Tufts CSDD estimate of $2.8 billion industry investment in each approved drug. This work shows the government served as an early investor in pharmaceutical innovations that are subsequently launched and commercialized by industry.

“Our analysis shows that at least half of the total investment in research and development required to bring a product to market comes from the U.S. government,” said Fred Ledley, Director of the Center for Integration of Science and Industry, and the senior author on this study. “If taxpayers are investing as much as shareholders in bringing drugs to market, then the public could expect social or economic returns commensurate with those of pharmaceutical companies or their shareholders.”

Industry has been criticized for high drug prices that make needed drugs unavailable to some patients. While industry claims that high drug prices are justified by the cost of bringing these drugs to market, the present work suggests that the public interest in these products should be balanced with corporate interest.

The Bentley study identified NIH funding for more than 400,000 research publications related to the drugs approved by the FDA from 2010-2019. Total NIH spending was $187 billion, with 83% of this total involving basic research on drug targets and 17% involving applied research on the drugs themselves. Statistical comparison of NIH investments in 60 drugs with industry costs reported from the London School of Economics and Political Science show NIH investment was not less than industry investment. This analysis also examined the economic efficiencies created by public sector funding for basic research that may provide a foundation for multiple product approvals. Considering that NIH-funded research on a validated drug target will be associated with an average of 2.85 drugs, the NIH invested an average of $711 million per drug approved 2010-2019.

Dr. Ekaterina Galkina Cleary was the lead author of this work along with Dr. Matthew Jackson and Dr. Edward Zhou.

This work was supported by grants from the Institute for New Economic Thinking and the National Biomedical Research Foundation.

THE CENTER FOR INTEGRATION OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY at Bentley University focuses on advancing the translation of scientific discoveries to create public value. The Center is an environment for interdisciplinary scholarship spanning basic science, data analytics, business, and public policy. For more information, visit www.bentley.edu/sciindustry and follow us on Twitter @sciindustry and LinkedIn.

BENTLEY UNIVERSITY is more than just one of the nation's top business schools. It is a lifelong-learning community that creates successful leaders who make business a force for positive change. With a combination of business and the arts and sciences and a flexible, personalized approach to education, Bentley provides students with critical thinking and practical skills that prepare them to lead successful, rewarding careers. Founded in 1917, the university enrolls 4,100 undergraduate and 1,000 graduate and PhD students and is set on 163 acres in Waltham, Massachusetts, 10 miles west of Boston. For more information, visit bentley.edu. For more information, visit bentley.edu. Follow us on Twitter @BentleyU #BentleyUResearch.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Health Forum

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Comparison of research spending on new drug approvals by the U.S. National Institutes of Health versus industry, 2010-2019

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Apr-2023

COI STATEMENT

Drs Jackson, Galkina Cleary, and Ledley reported grants from the National Biomedical Research Foundation and Institute for New Economic Thinking during the conduct of the study as well as grants from the West Health Policy Center and National Pharmaceutical Council outside the submitted work. Dr Zhou reported grants from the National Biomedical Research Foundation during the conduct of the study as well as a grant from the National Pharmaceutical Council outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of n

How solid air can spur sustainable development

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

 

IMAGE: SOLID AIR HYDROGEN LIQUEFACTION view more 

CREDIT: HUNT ET AL.

The green hydrogen economy is a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. However, one of the challenges of constructing a global hydrogen economy is hydrogen transportation by sea. A new paper proposes solid air as a medium for recycling cold energy across the hydrogen liquefaction supply chain.

The world is undergoing an energy transition to reduce CO2 emissions and mitigate climate change. The COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war have further increased the interest of Europe and Western countries to invest in the hydrogen economy as an alternative to fossil fuels. Hydrogen can significantly reduce geopolitical risks if the diversity of future hydrogen energy suppliers is increased.

Hydrogen is a particularly challenging product to transport safely. One option is to liquefy hydrogen, which requires cooling to 20 Kelvin (-253 °C). This is an expensive process and requires around 30% of the energy stored within the hydrogen.

A pioneering approach developed by IIASA researchers and colleagues proposes solid air (nitrogen or oxygen) as a medium for recycling cooling energy across the hydrogen liquefaction supply chain. At standard temperature and pressure, air is a gas, but under certain conditions, it can become a liquid or solid. Solid Air Hydrogen Liquefaction (SAHL) consists of storing the cooling energy from the regasification of hydrogen, by solidifying air, and transporting the solid air back to where the hydrogen was liquefied. The solid air is then used to reduce the energy consumption for liquefying hydrogen. The process is divided into four main steps: hydrogen regasification, solid air transportation, hydrogen liquefaction, and liquid hydrogen transportation.

Another advantage of solidifying air for energy recovery in the hydrogen liquefaction supply chain is the extra production of oxygen. The oxygen could be used to increase the efficiency of power generation with oxy-combustion and to facilitate the capture, use, and storage of carbon (CCUS).

“Using solid air as a medium for recycling cooling energy across the hydrogen liquefaction supply chain can reduce the cost and energy consumption for transporting hydrogen between continents,” says lead author Julian Hunt, a researcher in the Integrated Assessment and Climate Change Research Group of the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program. “This would increase the viability of a global hydrogen economy in the future and increase the number of hydrogen suppliers for energy-demanding regions, such as China, Europe, and Japan. The possibility of selling hydrogen could result in a further expansion of solar and wind power in developing countries, contributing to their economies.”

In their paper, the authors also address the ongoing debate in industry and academia to find the best alternative to transport hydrogen by sea:

“Compared to ammonia or methanol, liquefied hydrogen is the best option for several reasons. Transporting hydrogen with ammonia and other molecules would require around 30% of the energy transported to extract the hydrogen. The hydrogen is liquefied where electricity is cheap. Also, SAHL can lower energy consumption for hydrogen liquefaction by 25 to 50%,” Hunt concludes.

Reference

Hunt, J., Montanari, P., Hummes D., Taghavi M., Zakeri, B., Romero, O., Zhou, W., Castro, J., Schneider, P., Wada, Y. (2023). Solid air hydrogen liquefaction, the missing link of the hydrogen economy. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2023.03.405 

 

About IIASA:

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe.

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JOURNAL

International Journal of Hydrogen Energy

DOI

10.1016/j.ijhydene.2023.03.405 

ARTICLE TITLE

Solid air hydrogen liquefaction, the missing link of the hydrogen economy

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Apr-2023

York University leads $318.4M first-of-kind inclusive next-gen technology research initiative

Together with Queen’s University, the cross-disciplinary work is backed by $105.7M in federal funding through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund

Grant and Award Announcement

YORK UNIVERSITY

TORONTO, April 28, 2023 — Is an equitable world that includes humans and machines possible? York University researchers believe it must be and have set out to make it so through a first of its kind interdisciplinary research initiative called Connected Minds: Neural and Machine Systems for a Healthy, Just Society.

From universities to industries, hospitals and policymakers, artists and Indigenous communities, York’s Connected Minds will engage 50+ community partners and research collaborators over seven years supported by a historic $318.4 million in funding. Connected Minds has received a combined $105.7 million from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF), announced earlier today by the Government of Canada. Of that, York received $82.8 million and institutional partner Queen’s University received $22.8 million.

Led by York, Connected Minds brings together experts in multiple fields, including humanities, engineering, law, and life sciences, located across eight York Faculties and three Queen’s Faculties. Researchers will examine the ways in which emerging technology, like Artificial Intelligence, is transforming and entangling society – dubbed the ‘techno-social collective.’ Researchers will work to discover how to balance both the potential risks and benefits for humanity.  

Some of the program’s proposed projects include explorations into a more inclusive metaverse, virtual reality and community organizing, neurotechnologies for healthy aging, Indigenous data sovereignty, and how human brain function changes when people interact with AI versus each other.  

In addition to supporting interdisciplinary teams of researchers conducting research on promoting a healthy, resilient, and just techno-social collective, Connected Minds will fund 35 strategic faculty hires, partner-focused seed, team, and prototyping grants, knowledge mobilization and commercialization activities, and an ambitious multi-institutional micro-credential training program with 385 trainees and cross-sector stakeholders. All activities will require interdisciplinary participation, and projects that benefit Indigenous and other equity-deserving groups will be prioritized.

A key structural component of the program is an Indigenous-led focus and will feature a dedicated Indigenous research space on York’s Keele Campus, as well as employing an overarching decolonization, equity, diversity and inclusion (DEDI) strategy.

The program’s operations will involve a directorate led by internationally renowned neuroscientist Prof. Doug Crawford, as Scientific Director, along with intellectual property and technology law expert Prof.  Pina D’Agostino, as Vice-Director and Indigenous health scholar Prof. Sean Hillier as Associate Director. Engineer and neuroscientist Prof. Gunnar Blohm joins as the Vice-Director from Queen’s University.  

The governance structure of Connected Minds includes a Board of Directors to supervise the program ramp up, oversee its progress towards achieving strategic goals and maintain fiduciary responsibility, an External Advisory Board to advise on the overall strategic direction, knowledge mobilization and commercialization activities, and an Indigenous Advisory Circle to counsel all aspects of Indigenous engagement, including issues of privacy and data sovereignty.

The total value of the Connected Minds projects is $318.4 million with the remaining funds, including in-kind contributions, being contributed largely by multi-sector partners, municipal governments, and collaborating institutions.

QUOTES

“Receiving this second CFREF award in the last two competitions reflects York’s leadership as a research-intensive university that from its inception has understood the importance of an interdisciplinary approach in tackling complex, global problems. Connected Minds is particularly timely as we consider the implications of AI for creating a more equitable and inclusive world.” – Rhonda Lenton, York University president and vice-chancellor

“York is an international leader in interdisciplinary research involving artificial intelligence and other disruptive technologies, social justice, and human science like neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. The government’s substantial investment will unite York’s incredible strengths with Queen’s health specialties to chart new territory in socially responsible, community-engaged research for a rapidly changing digital world.” – Amir Asif, York University vice-president, Research and Innovation

“The current technological revolution will have transformative positive impacts, and likely unintended negative impacts, on humanity for generations to come. To predict these impacts and steer toward positive outcomes, one requires transdisciplinary expertise, multisector community engagement, and research and training at levels that can only occur in a large-scale program. We thank CFREF for providing Connected Minds with the resources to lead Canada and the world in this timely and critical enterprise.” – Doug Crawford, York Distinguished Research Professor in Neuroscience and inaugural Scientific Director of Connected Minds 

“New technologies are developing exponentially and systems like the law are simply not keeping up. York University’s motto, tentanda via, the way must be tried, guides us, in everything we will do.  We believe our inclusive, interdisciplinary approach that aligns with the UN sustainable development goals makes York University the perfect place for anticipating the way humans and machines will, and should, connect in an equitable society.  This way must be tried.” – Pina D’Agostino, director and founder of York’s IP Innovation Clinic at Osgoode Hall Law School and Vice Director of Connected Minds. 

“Connected Minds is informed by Indigenous perspectives and priorities to achieve outcomes that are culturally relevant and responsive to Indigenous ways of being and doing that impact how we think about and engage in life, health, and education. Our work will seek to address the unexpected consequences of technological innovation, like the growing digital divide for Indigenous communities to access remote health care, and issues of data sovereignty, ownership and digital colonialism.” – Sean Hillier, director of York University’s Centre for Indigenous Knowledges & Languages and Associate Director of Connected Minds

“The Connected Minds project builds on a history of partnership and collaboration between Queen’s and York. Each institution brings unique but complementary research strengths to bear on the important challenges and opportunities that come with disruptive technologies and their impact on Canadian and global citizens.”— Nancy Ross, vice principal research at Queen’s University

“I look forward to working with Indigenous, community and industrial partners to develop more equitable and socially responsible research outputs for the benefit of all. I am also excited about the many educational and outreach opportunities that Connected Minds will produce – from school programs to graduate training and professional skills development. We want to democratize education and access to knowledge, with the aim of spreading a new culture of innovation for a more equitable, inclusive, and healthy society.” – Gunnar Blohm, Professor in Computational Neuroscience and Vice Director of Connected Minds

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