Making the invisible visible: How Minh Duc Do uses AI for the early detection of diseases

What if we could recognise serious diseases before they become symptomatic? Minh Duc Do from the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) at Charité Berlin has laid the foundations for this with his thesis - and won 2nd place in the ‘Master's thesis’ category of the DMEA sparks Award.

Transformer technology meets medicine

Everyone knows ChatGPT - but what happens when you apply similar AI models to MRI images? Duc has done just that with his so-called Vision Transformer (ViT):

‘Our Vision Transformer is able to predict not only brain-related diseases such as Alzheimer's before the onset with up to 94% discrimination accuracy using brain MRI images alone, but also recognise non-brain-related diseases such as heart attacks, diabetes or depression.’ Discrimination accuracy describes how well at-risk individuals can be distinguished from non-risk individuals.

The AI model recognises patterns that are invisible to human eyes - a huge potential for early diagnosis.

Research that continues

Second place in the DMEA sparks award was not a conclusion for Duc, but rather an incentive: ‘Yes, I am still at BIH and we are continuing to work on improving the model.’ Working at the interface of medicine and technology is what drives him - and not just since yesterday.

He already came into contact with AI during his medical doctoral thesis at Yale University: ‘I discussed machine learning in medicine with many colleagues - AI wasn't even relevant back then.’ But his interest was piqued - and led him to study computer science with a clear goal: ‘I wanted to solve the problems in medicine that are hidden behind the façade of hospitals under the guise of medical confidentiality.’

The sparks Award also has great personal significance for Duc. He invested the prize money directly to settle an outstanding bill from a nursing internship in Togo:

"At the time, I had borrowed the money for the trip from a very good friend. With the prize money, I was finally able to pay it back."

Duc's tips for future applicants

His advice to anyone thinking about applying for the DMEA sparks Award 2026 is simple and clear: ‘Just go for it if you're already thinking about applying.’