07/17/2025
The Joint Summer School for Doctoral Programs was launched in 2012 as an international collaborative program between the Keio University Graduate School of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet (Sweden), King's College London (UK), and Peking University School of Medicine (China). This program aims to bring together outstanding students in Doctoral Programs from each country to learn cutting-edge knowledge from faculty members of each university and to deepen research exchange among the students. The four participating universities take turns hosting the program, which is centered around a lecture course.
The 2025 summer school was hosted by Peking University School of Medicine from Monday, June 30 to Friday, July 4, under the theme "Artificial Intelligence in Medicine." Faculty members (2–5 from each) and students in Doctoral Programs (around 4–10 from each) from Peking University School of Medicine, King's College London, and Keio University participated. From Keio University, lectures were given by Professor Masato Yasui of the Department of Pharmacology, a founding member of the program, as well as Project Professor Naohiko Koyama of WPI-Bio2Q and Project Professor Hisateru Tachimori of the Department of Health Policy and Management . Faculty members from Peking University and King's College London, specializing in diverse fields such as health data science, biostatistics and medical informatics, and biomedical engineering and imaging sciences, gave lectures. Among participants who already shared common research interests, lively Q&A sessions and opinion exchanges continued even after the lectures ended.
The program offered many opportunities for discussion, fostering lively interactions that transcended the boundaries between students and instructors. In the middle of the program, a campus tour was conducted by student volunteers from Peking University School of Medicine. Exploring the vast campus provided a valuable opportunity for natural interaction and deepening relationships with students and instructors from other universities. Following these interactions, a "Round Table Session" was held after all lectures were completed. In this session, instructors introduced topics based on their own research fields, and students actively expressed their opinions from the audience, leading to a multifaceted and enthusiastic discussion about the future of AI in the medical sciences.
On the final day, students in the Doctoral Programs were divided into groups and gave presentations to the entire assembly, responding to questions prepared in advance by the instructors based on their own research fields and original ideas. Regarding AI, a topic of growing interest in the medical sciences, the students presented diverse and sharp perspectives on themes such as its usefulness, the limits of its application, and the relationship between humans and AI.
The 2026 Joint Summer School for Doctoral Programs is scheduled to be hosted by King's College London, continuing with the theme "AI × Health Science." It is hoped that future global leaders will emerge from the participants of this program, leading to the formation of an international alliance in "AI × Health Science" among the participating universities.