Health AI Central
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Sci Transl Med2026;18(866):eaeh2517.September 9, 2026Journal Article

Machine learning-driven spleen imaging and genomics uncover a splenic connection to coronary artery disease.

Meghana Kamineni1, Vineet Raghu1,2,3, Zhanqing Hua4, Haodong Tian5,6,7, Buu Truong4,5,6,7, Ahmed Alaa8,9, Art Schuermans5,6,10, Sam Friedman11, Christopher Reeder11,12, Romit Bhattacharya1,7, Peter Libby1,13, Patrick T Ellinor1,5,6,7,14, Mahnaz Maddah11, Anthony Philippakis15, Whitney Hornsby5,6,7, Zhi Yu1,5,6,16, Pradeep Natarajan1,5,6,7,14,17,18
1Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
2Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
3Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Program, Mass General Brigham, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
4Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
5Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
6Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
7Heart and Vascular Institute, Mass General Brigham, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
8Computational Precision Health Program, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
9Computational Precision Health Program, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
10Faculty of Medicine, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
11Data Sciences Platform, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
12Layer Health, Boston, MA 02111, USA.
13Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
14Cardiovascular Disease Initiative, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
15Google Ventures, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
16Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
17Personalized Medicine, Mass General Brigham, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
18Amgen Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA 91320, USA.
PubMed DOI

Abstract

Despite advances in managing traditional risk factors, coronary artery disease (CAD) remains the leading cause of mortality. Circulating hematopoietic cells influence risk for CAD separately from traditional risk factors, but the role of a key regulating organ, the spleen, is unknown. The understudied spleen is a representation of the hematopoietic system optimally suited for unbiased radiologic i…

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