Barriers did not deter Aida Breckinridge — if she wanted to do something, she found a way. During the summer of 1903, at just 19 years of age, she visited Paris and saw a man flying a dirigible. She then convinced him to teach her how to pilot it and became the first woman to fly a powered aircraft solo, nearly six months before the Wright Brothers took flight. Two decades later, a doctor named William Holland Wilmer treated her glaucoma, partially saving her vision. She thanked Wilmer by leading the effort to raise $3 million to establish the Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore.

That was 1925. A century later, the philanthropic support of visionary individuals continues to propel the Wilmer Eye Institute forward. James Gills is one such visionary. Gills trained at Wilmer in the 1960s and standardized the treatment of cataracts using intraocular lens implants. He is also an accomplished triathlete, marathon runner and businessman. To accelerate cutting-edge work in artificial intelligence at Wilmer, Gills and his wife, Heather, recently donated $10 million to endow the James P. Gills Jr., M.D., and Heather Gills Artificial Intelligence Innovation Center.

The Gills family also endowed the James P. Gills Jr., M.D., and Heather Gills Rising Professorship of Artificial Intelligence in Ophthalmology, held by T. Y. Alvin Liu, who is the Gills AI Center’s inaugural director. The Gills AI Center’s endowment provides funding in perpetuity, which will enable Liu and his successors to think big about the future. “Now I can plan and execute a vision, not for the next five years as with typical research grants, but literally for the next 50 years,” Liu says. “That's extremely helpful for planning and scaling purposes, and it really allows us to be a lot more ambitious in a thoughtful way.”

Liu believes AI will transform medicine, with its greatest impact in three areas: screening, personalized medicine and health care administration. Johns Hopkins Medicine currently deploys Food and Drug Administration-approved autonomous AI screening systems that allow primary care providers to screen for diabetic retinopathy during routine visits, eliminating the need for multiple appointments. Wilmer investigators are training AI models to more accurately predict disease progression. In the next five years, Liu believes that AI will significantly streamline administrative tasks so physicians can focus more on patient care.

A goal of the Gills AI Center is to collaborate with big players in the private sector. Liu cites a pending partnership with Microsoft that will equip Johns Hopkins researchers with the most advanced AI models. “These are very powerful foundational models for biomedical purposes, but they’re not fine-tuned for ophthalmology,” Liu says. “Where Wilmer and Johns Hopkins bring value is our ability to co-develop these models for more specific applications.”

Liu says these applications are guided by a simple but powerful question: “Is it going to make people’s lives better?” Liu is an AI optimist but remains mindful of its potential to do harm. Johns Hopkins is one of few integrated health systems to have a formal AI governance structure, which sets AI policy, standardizes interactions with the private sector and creates criteria for evaluating AI tools, he notes.

With each advancement, the Wilmer Eye Institute builds on the legacy of visionary supporters like Aida Breckinridge and James Gills. “We’d like to think of ourselves as good stewards of these very generous donations,” Liu says. “With the Gills AI Center, this will remain true, and we’ll do our best to make sure that all donors get a good return in the form of benefiting patients, advancing scientific innovations and having positive impact.”

To support innovative work at the Wilmer Eye Institute, visit bit.ly/wilmergiving.