A University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire student, Brayden Mau, was named as a co-author on a peer-reviewed manuscript about Colon-Pilot, an artificial intelligence tool for automated colonoscopy surveillance, which was accepted for publication in The American Journal of Gastroenterology, according to an April 21 announcement.
The achievement highlights the growing collaboration between UW-Eau Claire and leading healthcare organizations to advance patient care through technology. The Colon-Pilot project demonstrates how academic and clinical partnerships can improve efficiency and quality in colorectal cancer prevention.
Mau’s work involved developing and validating Colon-Pilot, a large language model-powered clinical decision support system that uses OpenAI’s GPT-4o. He said the tool has completed clinical validation but is not yet deployed to patients. “It was cool to see all the work we’ve put in be published and out there for people to see,” Mau said. “It meant a lot to be able to come into this internship and earn the trust of a lot of these very well-known names.” Dr. Sushil Garg from Mayo Clinic Health System Eau Claire served as chair of gastroenterology and worked closely with Mau on the project.
Sarah Harper, manager of AI and Automation at Mayo Clinic Health System who supervised Mau, said: “His contributions were on par with a senior level AI engineer at our organization at the time.” Harper also praised his ability to translate technical knowledge into practical solutions within clinical settings. Dr. Rahul Gomes, associate professor and interim chair of computer science at UW-Eau Claire who advised Mau during his internship, said: “Dr. Garg works really quickly…and Brayden has been able to keep up with that, which is pretty awesome…That’s why we were able to have this paper out in such short time.”
Mau has contributed to other projects moving toward publication as well. These include papers submitted or under review by journals such as Mayo Clinic Proceedings and Applied Clinical Informatics covering topics like knowledge distillation techniques used in Colon-Pilot’s development or personalizing patient education materials using large language models.
The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire partners with entities such as Mayo Clinic Health System and Marshfield Clinic to promote health sciences initiatives. Its campus features facilities like the Science and Health Sciences Building shared with Mayo Clinic Health System according to its official website. The university is recognized nationally for its quality, affordability, student success rates, sustainability practices according to its official website, supports one of the Midwest’s most active marching bands as reported by its official site, contributes broadly across culture and economy through collaborations according to its official website, while emphasizing critical-thinking skills development among students according to its official website.
Looking ahead, Mau continues training new interns before his own internship concludes in early May; he hopes these experiences will lead him toward a permanent role supporting healthcare innovation at Mayo Clinic Health System.
