Professor Teresa Scassa is a co-lead on a major new research initiative funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) that will examine how Canada regulates AI-driven medical devices. The four-year, $355,724 project, entitled “Optimizing Medical Device Regulation of Artificial Intelligence,” brings together a multidisciplinary and international team to study how regulatory frameworks can keep pace with rapidly evolving AI technologies in clinical settings.
The project will assess how Canada’s current medical device regime responds to emerging AI systems, paying particular attention to tools that evolve over time, that perform differently across patient populations, and that introduce novel forms of risk. It will also compare Canadian approaches with regulatory models in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, Brazil, and Nigeria.
Professor Scassa joins co-leads Colleen Flood, Dean of the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University and former professor at the Common Law Section, Professor Catherine Régis of the Université de Montréal, Professor Anna Goldenberg of the University of Toronto, and Dr. Devin Singh of the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). Together, the team will work with regulators, patient groups, Indigenous communities, and health professional organizations to develop model laws and regulatory tools that promote responsible innovation while protecting patients.
This initiative aims to position Canada as a global leader not only in health innovation, but also in the regulatory systems that ensure such innovation remains safe, equitable, and worthy of public trust.