Meet: Dr Christopher Banerji

Banerji brings an unusual combination of expertise to his new role as an AI+ Fellow at King's College London: a mathematician who became a biologist, then a doctor, and now works in clinical AI. This path has given him a unique perspective on how to harness AI's power without sacrificing the human judgement that medicine depends upon.

Dr Christopher Banerji is an AI+ Fellow at King’s College London. These interdisciplinary fellowships are central to King’s £18 million strategic investment in academic excellence and demonstrate King's commitment to transforming AI research and innovation across all disciplines.

"When I was younger, maths was my whole world," Banerji recalls. "Maths was a beautiful language to describe the world around you." While studying mathematics at the University of Oxford, he had initial designs to pursue finance, but health issues in his family prompted a fundamental shift.

Moving into mathematical biology, Banerji felt he needed to understand the discipline deeply. "Coming in as a mathematician wasn't enough, so I went to train as a biologist." His PhD at UCL in computational biology included wet-lab work at King's Randall Division with Professor Peter Zammit, studying muscular dystrophy.

Through patient engagement days, presenting research to people living with muscular dystrophy, he had a revelation. "I got the feeling we were trying to help patients, but I never really saw them. Just numbers on a screen," he reflects. "Unless we talk to patients, we don't know if we're doing what they want or what we're just interested in."

This led him to graduate medicine at Imperial College London, continuing research alongside clinical training. After qualifying, he chose Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, but after two and a half years wanted to dedicate more time to research, which had become a hobby alongside his full-time clinical work.

Banerji joined The Alan Turing Institute as part of the Turing-Roche partnership to develop clinical AI. "As we were going faster and faster with AI, there weren't any brakes," he observes.

He became Theme Lead for Clinical AI at the Turing while returning to medicine as a histopathologist. Occupying these dual roles crystallised his research vision.

Now, through his AI+ Fellowship at King’s and work with Transparency Labs on the King’s MedTech Accelerator, Banerji is tackling the fundamental tension in healthcare AI. The mathematician in me wants to steamroller inefficiency. The clinician in me wants to make sure there's oversight," he explains.

His current focus is cancer care. In multidisciplinary team meetings across England, around 55,000 gatherings annually discuss approximately 100 patients each in two hours – leaving roughly two minutes per patient for life-changing treatment decisions. Much of the burden falls on report writing, where clinicians spend hours manually reviewing complex data.

Banerji's AI systems are designed to draft these reports in an editable way, maintaining clinician oversight. For the meetings themselves, the AI provides real-time safety support, flagging cases where its assessment differs from the discussion. "Minimise inefficiency, maximise safety," he summarises.

Critically, this approach extends beyond medicine. "This process and decision-making happens in law, finance, government," Banerji notes. "We're building general AI architectures that mirror these workflows, maintain human oversight, but get rid of the massive burden of data analysis."

The biggest challenge? "Probably the acceptance of the tools by doctors and by patients. There's a lot of stigma around the use of AI in clinical settings," he acknowledges. His team is conducting extensive engagement to understand concerns and build tools that people trust.

King's has been integral to Banerji's journey – from PhD work at the Randall Division to his postdoctoral position and first clinical role at St Thomas' Hospital. Returning now as an AI+ Fellow, he's excited about the interdisciplinary environment and King's translational infrastructure.