A pan-Scotland collaboration of 15 partners from across academia, industry, and the NHS has been awarded £10M by Innovate UK to establish a Scottish centre of excellence in medical imaging and digital pathology with artificial intelligence (AI). The Industrial Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research in Digital Diagnostics (iCAIRD) will be centred at the University of Glasgow’s Clinical Innovation Zone at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
As part of the delivery of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund in ‘data to early diagnosis and precision medicine’, iCAIRD will build on significant investment across Scotland and focus on the application of AI in digital diagnostics, ultimately enabling better and earlier diagnosis and more efficient treatment for patients. iCAIRD’s medical imaging research will include developing solutions for more rapid treatment for stroke, expert chest x-ray reading, and partly automated mammogram analysis for breast cancer screening. The centre will also carry out digital pathology research to achieve rapid and more accurate diagnosis in gynaecological disease and colon cancer.
- Four SINAPSE partner Universities are the founding academic partners of iCAIRD: University of Glasgow, University of Aberdeen, University of Edinburgh, and University of St Andrews.
- Founding industry partners of iCAIRD include Canon Medical Research Europe – which will develop a network of Safe-Haven Artificial Intelligence Platforms within existing NHS data ‘safe-havens’ – and Philips, along with six SMEs.
- NHS Scotland is an additional founding partner of iCAIRD, in which the NHS Grampian and NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde health boards will be centrally involved. iCAIRD will integrate with Health Data Research UK and the Scottish national Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS) for radiology.
Further details on the funded centres of excellence can be found here.
University of Glasgow press release
University of Aberdeen press release