UK to Set Up New GBP 10 Million Centre for Medical Imaging and AI

The UK’s London Medical Imaging & Artificial Intelligence Centre for Value-Based Healthcare will train sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms from NHS medical images and patient data, to create tools that will help clinicians speed up and improve diagnosis and care across a number of patient pathways, including dementia, heart failure and cancer.

Awarded by UK Research and Innovation as part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, the centre is led by King's College London and brings together experts from Imperial College London (UK), Queen Mary’s University London (UK) and various healthcare partners.

The centre will focus on transformation and value-based healthcare, and how advanced imaging and AI technologies can be used to improve the patient journey - from earlier diagnosis if there is a problem and reassurance if not, to moving quickly to a treatment which is tailored to the patient and will result in the best possible outcome. By optimizing triage and targeting resources, these technologies will also allow the NHS to reduce wasted effort that is not supporting patient care, and deliver significant financial savings.

"AI has tremendous potential in radiology and medical imaging. The centre will take the lead in translating cutting edge AI research from the lab into the clinic while addressing challenges such as the verification of AI systems and ensuring their interpretability, which is vital for enabling safe deployment in the NHS," said Professor Daniel Rueckert, Head of Imperial's Department of Computing.

"The centre will provide a fantastic opportunity to transform 12 different patient pathways by using advanced imaging and AI and help make the products that will substantially improve the experience for our patients and their clinical outcomes. It will also allow us to better utilize the resources within the NHS," said Centre Director Professor Reza Razavi from King’s College London. "This builds on a great on-going partnership between our researchers, clinicians and industry colleagues that will help put the UK at the forefront of developing and applying new technologies to improve healthcare."

"Early diagnosis of illness can greatly increase the chances of successful treatment and save lives," said UK Research and Innovation Chief Executive Professor Sir Mark Walport. "The centers announced today bring together the teams that will develop artificial intelligence tools that can analyze medical images varying from X-rays to microscopic sections from tissue biopsies. AI has the potential to revolutionize the speed and accuracy of medical diagnosis."

Related Links:
Imperial College London
Queen Mary’s University London