Cross-discipline thinking

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Snapshot: Leading cross-University collaborations

At Usher we don't just talk about the value of working across disciplines - we live it! For example, the Advanced Care Research Centre (ACRC) is based in the Usher Institute with members across the whole University. It has a vision of high-quality data-driven, personalised and affordable care that supports the independence, dignity and quality-of-life of people in later life living in their own homes and in supported care environments.

Professor Bruce Guthrie at the ACRC is heading up a new research programme looking at multimorbidities, where people have complicated mixes of different conditions and treatments. Artificial Intelligence and multimorbidity - Clustering in individuals, space and clinical context (or “AIM CISC” for short) is using artificial intelligence to analyse and understand this information to attempt to establish what patterns of multimorbidity are most common, which most affect people’s lives, and help improve quality and safety of care.

Advanced Care Research Centre (ACRC) website

Snapshot: Improving dementia diagnosis

A team led by Professor Thanasis Tsanas has shown it is possible to analyse speech, even over the telephone, to diagnose, monitor symptom progression of and even sub-type Parkinson’s Disease. Digital health company, iLoF is developing a tool to screen for Alzheimer’s Disease using AI technology. Partnering with Dr Athina Spiliopolou at the Usher Institute has helped the iLoF team to improve the robustness of their processes, the performance of their models, how they interpret the output, and the speed of computation – helping to create a robust and accurate medical device that may transform the future diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease.

iLof and the Usher Institute collaboration - Data-driven Entrepreneurship website