Prof. Jorge Gonçalves received the Hubei Province Chime Bell Award in recognition of his outstanding academic contributions in the fields of modelling and machine learning. The award, initiated in 1994, is presented to foreign experts who have made significant contributions to the province. It is the highest award given by the Hubei Province (with 60 million people) to foreign experts.
In 2020, Prof. Gonçalves was awarded the 2017-2019 Chime Bell Award, but as the COVID-19 pandemic halted all research visits and travel plans, the award ceremony could only be held recently. Prof. Chen Jianguo, Vice President of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, presented the award to Prof. Gonçalves while expressing the desire to further strengthen collaboration between the institutions in the field of artificial intelligence.
Long-standing collaboration in the field of machine learning
Prof. Gonçalves, PI of the Systems Control group, has been collaborating with the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, for the past 5 years. One of the more prominent projects focused on survival prediction in patients with severe COVID-19 infection based on blood samples from Chinese COVID-19 patients. Gonçalves and his team used machine learning tools to identify crucial biomarkers of disease severity. Their results were published in Nature Machine Intelligence and highlight three parameters that can be used to predict the survival of individual patients with more than 90% accuracy.
“The Chime Bell Award belongs not only to me, but is also a testament to the collective efforts of the dedicated teams at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology and the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine. This prestigious recognition not only acknowledges our contributions, but also highlights the exceptional environment, knowledge, and resources provided by both institutions throughout this longstanding collaboration. I am very much looking forward to continue our joint research in the years to come.” said Prof. Gonçalves.