Loading...


Microsoft Research Forum

Join us for a continuous exchange of ideas about science and technology research in the era of general AI. This series explores recent research advances, bold new ideas, and important discussions with the global research community.


Episode 5

Tuesday, February 25, 2025
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Pacific Time


Discover how precision health, multimodal AI agents, and innovative chemical synthesis models are advancing clinical care, agents, and drug discovery. Explore the latest techniques for ensuring memory safety, fixing programming errors, and empowering the next generation of agentic AI.


Agenda

Session TypeSpeakersDescription
Opening Remarks
Will Guyman, Principal Group Product Manager, Healthcare AI Models
Friederike Niedtner, Principal Technical Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research AI Frontiers
KeynoteHoifung Poon, General Manager, Microsoft Health FuturesMultimodal generative AI for precision health
This talk introduces an agenda in precision health, utilizing generative AI to pretrain high-fidelity patient embeddings from multimodal, longitudinal patient journeys. This approach unlocks population-scale real-world evidence, optimizing clinical care and accelerating biomedical discovery.
Panel Discussion
Hoifung Poon (host), General Manager, Microsoft Health Futures
Lili Qiu, Assistant Managing Director, Microsoft Research Shanghai
Ava Amini, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research New England
Carlo Bifulco, CMO, Providence Genomics
Matthew Lungren, Chief Data Science Officer, Microsoft Health & Life Sciences
AI for precision health: Learning the language of nature and patients
This panel discussion with Microsoft researchers and external guests explores the transformative potential of generative AI in learning the language of nature and patients for precision health, from proteins to medical imaging, from electronic medical records to home health monitoring. Emphasis is placed on the end-to-end innovation cycle from foundational research to deep partnership to productization.
TalkMarwin Segler, Principal Researcher Manager, Microsoft Research AI for ScienceChimera: Accurate synthesis prediction by ensembling models with diverse induction biases
This talk addresses chemical synthesis in drug discovery with a learning-to-rank framework that integrates AI-based models, significantly boosting prediction accuracy and preferred by chemists.
TalkJianwei Yang, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research RedmondMagma: A foundation model for multimodal AI agents
This talk introduces Magma, a new multimodal agentic foundation model designed for UI navigation in digital environments and robotics manipulation in physical settings. It covers two new techniques, Set-of-Mark and Trace-of-Mark, for action grounding and planning, and details the unified pretraining pipeline that learns agentic capabilities.
TalkJohn Langford, Partner Research Manager, Microsoft Research AI FrontiersBelief state transformers
This talk showcases a new transformer architecture that generates compact belief states for goal-conditioned planning, enhancing planning algorithms' efficiency and effectiveness.
TalkGagan Basal, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research AI FrontiersAutoGen v0.4: Reimagining the foundation of agentic AI for scale, extensibility, and robustness
This talk introduces a transformative update to the AutoGen framework that builds on user feedback and redefines modularity, stability, and flexibility to empower the next generation of agentic AI research and applications.
Talk
Aseem Rastogi, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research FoSSE (Future of Scalable Software Engineering)
Pantazis Deligiannis, Principal Research Engineer, Microsoft Research FoSSE (Future of Scalable Software Engineering)
Using LLMs for safe low-level programming
This talk covers two technical results from ICSE'2025 on using Large Language Models (LLMs) for safe low-level programming. The results demonstrate LLMs inferring machine-checkable memory safety invariants in legacy C code, and how LLMs assist in fixing compilation errors in Rust codebases.
Closing Remarks
Will Guyman, Principal Group Product Manager, Healthcare AI Models
Friederike Niedtner, Principal Technical Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research AI Frontiers
Session TypeOpening Remarks
Speakers
Will Guyman, Principal Group Product Manager, Healthcare AI Models
Friederike Niedtner, Principal Technical Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research AI Frontiers
Description

Session TypeKeynote
SpeakersHoifung Poon, General Manager, Microsoft Health Futures
DescriptionMultimodal generative AI for precision health
This talk introduces an agenda in precision health, utilizing generative AI to pretrain high-fidelity patient embeddings from multimodal, longitudinal patient journeys. This approach unlocks population-scale real-world evidence, optimizing clinical care and accelerating biomedical discovery.

Session TypePanel Discussion
Speakers
Hoifung Poon (host), General Manager, Microsoft Health Futures
Lili Qiu, Assistant Managing Director, Microsoft Research Shanghai
Ava Amini, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research New England
Carlo Bifulco, CMO, Providence Genomics
Matthew Lungren, Chief Data Science Officer, Microsoft Health & Life Sciences
DescriptionAI for precision health: Learning the language of nature and patients
This panel discussion with Microsoft researchers and external guests explores the transformative potential of generative AI in learning the language of nature and patients for precision health, from proteins to medical imaging, from electronic medical records to home health monitoring. Emphasis is placed on the end-to-end innovation cycle from foundational research to deep partnership to productization.

Session TypeTalk
SpeakersMarwin Segler, Principal Researcher Manager, Microsoft Research AI for Science
DescriptionChimera: Accurate synthesis prediction by ensembling models with diverse induction biases
This talk addresses chemical synthesis in drug discovery with a learning-to-rank framework that integrates AI-based models, significantly boosting prediction accuracy and preferred by chemists.

Session TypeTalk
SpeakersJianwei Yang, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research Redmond
DescriptionMagma: A foundation model for multimodal AI agents
This talk introduces Magma, a new multimodal agentic foundation model designed for UI navigation in digital environments and robotics manipulation in physical settings. It covers two new techniques, Set-of-Mark and Trace-of-Mark, for action grounding and planning, and details the unified pretraining pipeline that learns agentic capabilities.

Session TypeTalk
SpeakersJohn Langford, Partner Research Manager, Microsoft Research AI Frontiers
DescriptionBelief state transformers
This talk showcases a new transformer architecture that generates compact belief states for goal-conditioned planning, enhancing planning algorithms' efficiency and effectiveness.

Session TypeTalk
SpeakersGagan Basal, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research AI Frontiers
DescriptionAutoGen v0.4: Reimagining the foundation of agentic AI for scale, extensibility, and robustness
This talk introduces a transformative update to the AutoGen framework that builds on user feedback and redefines modularity, stability, and flexibility to empower the next generation of agentic AI research and applications.

Session TypeTalk
Speakers
Aseem Rastogi, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research FoSSE (Future of Scalable Software Engineering)
Pantazis Deligiannis, Principal Research Engineer, Microsoft Research FoSSE (Future of Scalable Software Engineering)
DescriptionUsing LLMs for safe low-level programming
This talk covers two technical results from ICSE'2025 on using Large Language Models (LLMs) for safe low-level programming. The results demonstrate LLMs inferring machine-checkable memory safety invariants in legacy C code, and how LLMs assist in fixing compilation errors in Rust codebases.

Session TypeClosing Remarks
Speakers
Will Guyman, Principal Group Product Manager, Healthcare AI Models
Friederike Niedtner, Principal Technical Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research AI Frontiers
Description

Featured Speakers

  • Photo of Hoifung Poon

    Hoifung Poon

    General Manager

    Microsoft Health Futures

  • Photo of Lili Qiu

    Lili Qiu

    Assistant Managing Director

    Microsoft Research Shanghai

  • Photo of Carlo Bifulco

    Carlo Bifulco

    CMO

    Providence Genomics

  • Photo of John Langford

    John Langford

    Partner Research Manager

    Microsoft Research AI Frontiers

  • Photo of Ava Amini

    Ava Amini

    Senior Researcher

    Microsoft Research New England

  • Photo of Matthew Lungren

    Matthew Lungren

    Chief Data Science Officer

    Microsoft Health & Life Sciences

  • Photo of Aseem Rastogi

    Aseem Rastogi

    Principal Researcher

    Microsoft Research FoSSE (Future of Scalable Software Engineering)

  • Photo of Jianwei Yang

    Jianwei Yang

    Principal Researcher

    Microsoft Research Redmond

  • Photo of Marwin Segler

    Marwin Segler

    Principal Researcher Manager

    Microsoft Research AI for Science

  • Photo of Pantazis Deligiannis

    Pantazis Deligiannis

    Principal Research Software Engineer

    Microsoft Research FoSSE (Future of Scalable Software Engineering)

  • Photo of Gagan Basal

    Gagan Basal

    Senior Researcher

    Microsoft Research AI Frontiers

  • Photo of Friederike Niedtner

    Friederike Niedtner

    Principal Technical Research Program Manager

    Microsoft Research AI Frontiers 

  • Photo of Will Guyman

    Will Guyman

    Principal Group Product Manager

    Healthcare AI Models

Series episodes

Upcoming episodes

Mark your calendar and don't miss our upcoming 2025 episodes.

Episode 6

Tuesday, June 3, 2025 | 9:00 AM PT

Episode 7

Tuesday, October 21, 2025 | 9:00 AM PT

Explore previous episodes

Catch up on AutoGen, AI for Science, systems, equitable AI, precision health and more.

Explore more about Microsoft Research

Microsoft research copilot experience

Microsoft Research Chat


Discover more about research at Microsoft through our AI-powered experience.


Careers in research

Careers in research


Join a brilliant team of researchers and engineers working to solve technology’s most exciting challenges.

Microsoft Research Blog

Microsoft Research Blog


The latest news and insights from Microsoft Research, covering topics such as AI, data science, machine learning, human-computer interaction, and more.

Microsoft Research Podcast

Microsoft Research Podcast


An ongoing series of lively conversations about the people and ideas that inspire research at Microsoft.