Researchers at PNNL Join Global Experts to Collaborate on Advancing Health Protection with AI

This summer, scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) led discussions on their latest research related to artificial intelligence (AI) and One Health at the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) conference. Titled “A Roadmap for AI-enabled Human and Environmental Health Protection,” the HESI event included speakers and participants from more than 10 countries. 

“It was groundbreaking for a conference of this kind,” said Justin Teeguarden, chief science officer for the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory User Program, PNNL lab fellow, and HESI board member. “The creative use of AI—not just as a topic, but as a tool to successfully synthesize and integrate diverse types of content, power point presentations, published papers and the entirety of the spoken presentations and discussions in near real time, across all the sessions—was exciting to be a part of.” 

Contributing as featured panelists and presenters 

The contributions made by staff at PNNL were distinctive and robust in equal measures. In addition to Teeguarden, Lauren Charles, who leads One Health efforts at PNNL, and Nancy Washton, a recognized leader in AI, also contributed to the event.

Teeguarden helped shape the event through his participation on the planning committee, including his role in connecting both Charles and Washton to the event and through his moderation efforts. He shared, “Serving on the committee and moderating at the HESI Global Conference was a unique privilege.”

Charles joined the Session 3 Panel, “Ecosystem and One Health (Human, Ecological, and Environmental) Protection and Prediction—Can AI Help Us with Global Scale Health Protection?” Reflecting on her contributions at the event, she shared, “I had the great opportunity to be able to share the importance of an AI-driven, One Health approach for early warning and mitigation of human, animal, and environmental health threats and highlight PNNL's extensive work in applied Health Security.”

She presented alongside Levente Klein of IBM, Julian Heinrich of Bayer Crop Science, and Victoria Baxter of Google. Charles added, “Our panel discussion helped illuminate the complex obstacles, key enablers, and the tremendous potential impact that AI and a One Health approach can bring to sustaining food, environmental, and global health security.”

Re-envisioning AI’s role in protecting human health 

Teeguarden concluded the event by highlighting a roadmap of key barriers and opportunities produced by the AI agent developed by the HESI team with help from Nancy Washton, coined as the five Guiding Pillars for AI-enabled human environmental protection. These pillars were made up of connected data, trust and validation, real-world use cases, capacity building, and responsible design. 

Collaborating with HESI Global, Washton introduced the HESI team to best practices for building tailored GPTs, providing frameworks that directly informed the design of their “Workshop GPT,” which enabled the previously mentioned real-time synthesis of expert insights shared during the event. The HESI team took the guidance and ran with it, successfully developing the AI agent—resulting in the output of both the guiding pillars and the post-event workshop report. 

On the impact of this custom GPT, Teeguarden stated, “No other forum has explored the integration of AI across levels of biological complexity, from molecular systems to ecosystems, and its promise for One Health, with the depth and rigor that HESI Global has. This conference truly reenvisioned AI's role—and its limitations—in protecting human and environmental health through the One Health paradigm.”

With great power comes great responsibility 

Washton, a trained experimental physical chemist, discovered large language models (LLMs) just over two and a half years ago. Her immediate fascination for LLMs led her to pivot her career toward primarily working with generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) with a central goal of accelerating scientific discovery.

Since then, Washton has carved out a unique niche in Gen AI work—leveraging open-source and commercially available offerings and pushing them to the furthest extent possible as exemplified in her collaboration with HESI.

“Such collaborations drive cross-sector impact by helping others operationalize generative AI responsibly—and demonstrate PNNL’s leadership in AI deployment for mission-driven discovery,” said Washton. 

The responsible use of Gen AI is a significant focus for Washton, who is involved in initiatives like the Center for AI @ PNNL. She added, “This is one of the big problems right now. People don't understand the level of responsibility that they have when working with these algorithms. This is especially important for anything technical. And as scientists, we really are only as good as our integrity and our credibility.”

Global collaboration

HESI, a globally recognized nonprofit institution with over 30 years of experience, hosted the event at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, June 4–5, 2025. 

The two-day conference was attended by over 150 participants from around the world and fostered evolving discussions about challenges and opportunities in human and environmental health protection, with a focus on AI and machine learning’s impact on drug, chemical, and food safety.Teeguarden has served on the HESI Global board of trustees for nearly 2 years.

Center for AI @ PNNL

PNNL's Center for AI advances the Lab's role as a catalyst for trustworthy AI adoption in scientific organizations by providing guidance, literacy resources, and tailored training to help staff at PNNL leverage AI technologies effectively and responsibly.