NEWS
£ 10M TO DEVELOP NEW AI TOOLS FOR PREDICTING RISK OF CANCER
Earlier diagnosis of cancer saves lives . However , only 54.4 % of cancers in England are currently diagnosed at stages one and two , where treatment is more likely to be successful .
Cancer Research UK , the National Institute for Health and Care Research ( NIHR ) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council ( EPSRC ) announced an exciting research project that could enable doctors to better predict and prevent cancer .
Supported by Health Data Research UK ( HDR UK ) and partners , the Cancer Data-Driven Detection ( CD3 ) programme will receive £ 10 million to create new tools using AI and state-of-the-art analytics that will help scientists accurately predict who is most likely to get cancer .
Vast quantities of secure data will be harnessed to improve the detection and diagnosis of cancer at its earliest stages . The programme aims to access and link data from different sources – such as health records , genomics , family history , demographics , environmental , and behavioural data – to develop advanced statistical models and powerful AI data analysis tools , which will help identify an individual ’ s risk of cancer throughout their lifetime .
Over the next five years , the funding will support the programme to build the infrastructure required to access and link health-related datasets , train new data scientists , create the algorithms behind the risk models , and evaluate the algorithms and AI tools to ensure that they are giving accurate and clinically useful information about cancer risk .
The scientific programme will be guided by partnerships with cancer patients , the public , clinical experts and industry , while addressing ethical and legal considerations to ensure that the models and tools work well in practice .
Professor Antonis Antoniou , Director of the Cancer Data Driven Detection programme and Professor of Cancer Risk Prediction at the University of Cambridge , said : “ Finding people at the highest risk of developing cancer , including those with vague symptoms , is a major challenge . The UK ’ s strengths in population-scale data resources , combined with advanced analytical tools like AI , offer tremendous opportunities to link disparate datasets and uncover clues that could lead to earlier detection , diagnosis and prevention of more cancers .”
NEW AI TECHNOLOGY IN DEVELOPMENT TO PREDICT DEMENTIA RISK FROM EYE TEST
Researchers in Scotland have teamed up with optometrists in a groundbreaking collaboration , to develop a new AI tool to determine dementia risk from retinal scans . The technology is the focus of work by the NeurEYE research team , led by the University of Edinburgh , with Glasgow Caledonian University .
In an effort to create a large-scale dataset optimal for AI analysis , the research team have already collected almost a million anonymised eye scans from a collaboration with opticians across Scotland .
Using AI and Machine Learning , they will be able to analyse the image data , linked to other relevant data – such as demographics , pre-existing conditions and treatment history . The technology will allow researchers to identify patterns that could indicate a person ’ s risk of developing dementia , as well as determine a broader picture of their brain health .
Approval comes from the Public Benefit and Privacy Panel for Health and Social Care , a part of NHS Scotland and the data will be held safely in the Scottish National Safe Haven , commissioned by Public Health Scotland , which provides a secure platform for the research use of NHS electronic data .
Professor Andrew Morris , Director of HDR UK , said : “ The ability to identify dementia risk via routine eye tests would be a truly significant step forward , in our efforts to combat Alzheimer ’ s disease – already a significant public health issue , and predicted to affect 1.6 million people in the UK by 2050 .”
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