Session 2: Validation | Taking models from lab to bedside

Gunnar Rätsch heads the Biomedical Informatics Group at ETH Zurich’s Institute of Machine Learning. He also serves as Adjunct Faculty at University Hospital Zurich and is a Core Faculty Member at the ETH AI Center.

His team tackles complex biomedical challenges with cutting-edge machine learning. Current projects include algorithms for medical time series, multi-modal single-cell and spatial data, and biological sequence analysis. He has led local, national and global research efforts, such as the RNA analysis working group of the International Cancer Genome Consortium, working groups in the Swiss Personalized Health Network and the LOOP Biomedical Informatics platform.

Mary-Anne (Annie) Hartley is an Adjunct Professor and Director at at EPFL. As a physician-scientist and global health innovator, she leads the LiGHT Lab (Laboratory for Intelligent Global Health and Humanitarian Response Technologies) with active sites across Rwanda, India, Switzerland, and the U.S.

Formerly a tenure-track professor at Yale, she holds academic roles at EPFL, Ashoka University, Carnegie Mellon Africa, and Ariadne Labs. Her work integrates AI, clinical research, and humanitarian response, including leadership in vaccine trials and epidemic modeling. With experience spanning Ebola outbreaks to COVID-19 trials, she has collaborated with ministries of health and global NGOs. Her mission is to bring intelligent, scalable solutions to underserved health systems worldwide.