Patients are already benefitting from this research. In one published paper, a patient with stage four prostate cancer received a new lease of life thanks to an AI‐generated treatment plan. “We were able to use Curate to continually adjust doses to optimise the patient’s response to treatment and the outcome was good,” Ho says. “This is what I call interventional AI—a true AI‐guided treatment.”

In what is proving to be a watershed year for AI—the topic continues to be hotly debated across multiple industries—Ho observes that this public attention has led to a greater acceptance of the idea of the use of AI in the healthcare sector. “The evidence is there, so I think people are now more receptive not only to the technology, but also everything that surrounds it, including how to test it, how to validate it and how to build data to drive it,” he says.

In a big coup for the team, this pioneering work on dynamic dosing has been recognised by the influential American Society of Clinical Oncology. This month, Ho is due to travel to the US to give a presentation at the organisation’s annual meeting, where only the most impactful breakthroughs are given airtime.“It’s a testament to the team that in a field such as medicine, where it’s so hard to have these huge changes in how things are done, this is materialising at the venue where the global standards of practice are defined,” he says.

This mission to revolutionise healthcare is also deeply personal. One fateful morning in 2018, after Ho had seen his kids off on the school bus, he returned home to find his wife Sarah Ahn, a neuroscientist, lying face up on the bathroom floor. She was conscious but unable to move. To add to the discombobulation of the moment, the family was so new to Singapore, he had to Google the number for emergency services.

In a series of events that unfolded rapidly over the next 24 hours, doctors discovered she had a brain tumour and had to undergo an operation to remove it the following morning. “I remember how dejected I was, [wondering] if I would have my wife for another two years, if my kids would be without a mum. It took a whole community to scrape us off the ground,” he says. The memories remain so fresh, he can recall the tiniest details, from his wife’s reaction to seeing images of her own brain scan to him bringing his kids to Burger King for a meal on the day of her collapse.

She pulled through, but the tumour turned out to be malignant, meaning that she has to undergo regular scans to ensure a clean bill of health; last year, she had her fourth‐year image taken just a few days before attending the annual Tatler Ball with Ho. “It’s still very hard for her—she suffers from debilitating headaches—but she has elected to find a way through with a smile on her face and to be there for the family,” he says. “I think she has exceeded all expectations for someone with a malignant brain tumour.”

Witnessing Ahn’s daily fight to lead a normal life has given Ho an even greater impetus to play a role in leading healthcare innovation to ensure that everyone gets a fair shot at effective and affordable treatment. It has also offered insights into why empathy is important when designing solutions. “[My wife’s experience] has compelled me to understand that technology alone is not going to solve healthcare challenges. It’s about understanding the user— what is it like for them to even show up to the breakfast table. We have to have a deeper appreciation for what they go through in order to create solutions that they are willing or able to use. That matters,” he says.

Ho is exploring new frontiers in treatment by harnessing AI in video game digital therapy for cognitive training to maintain or improve brain function. “We want to generate evidence that when you play certain games, you can augment or optimise cognitive performance,” says Ho, sharing that his team is already beginning to design these games. “We like the fact that people can remotely do cognitive training, which really makes healthcare more decentralised, as healthcare expenditure is escalating substantially and accessibility is being reduced.”

Such digital therapies form the backbone of his upcoming book, Medicine Without Meds, which he co‐authored with two teammates, Yoann Sapanel and Agata Blasiak. He emphasises that the publication, slated to launch in October, is not a medical textbook, but rather “a blueprint for how to accelerate innovation to patients faster and safely”. He expounds: “It essentially informs others how we did what we did as an organisation to bring innovation to the user faster and we hope it will resonate beyond healthcare.” To give back to the community, 100 per cent of author royalties will be donated to the WisDM Patient Impact Fund and channelled to needy causes, he adds.

Up next, Ho is planning to turn his focus to biohacking, one of the most popular wellness trends that involves making changes to one’s diet, exercise and mindfulness practices to improve brain function and stave off the negative effects of ageing. Ho himself is a fitness junkie who spends almost two hours at the gym daily, so it is no surprise that this has piqued his curiosity.

His goal is to figure out how to biohack in a scientific manner to produce measurable results. His team is currently working with a US company to extract compounds from food that contain known antioxidants, such as goji berry, to improve liver health. Pre‐clinical data are already showing positive outcomes, he says. “Even if you were to eat goji berries every day, that alone is not powerful enough. You would need to isolate the ingredients in the right combinations, and that is where AI can help,” he explains.

Ultimately, Ho aims to harness the power of AI to uncover optimal combinations of fitness and wellness practices, such as ice baths, and nutritional intake to keep individuals at peak health and productivity for as long as possible. He says: “Ageing is a freight train and if we do this by trial and error, it’s like firing a rubber band against that train. No one ages backwards, but if you want to have a measurable impact on health decline, optimisation is the only way.”

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