We are excited to announce that the Cambridge Mathematics of Information in Healthcare (CMIH) Hub has been awarded £1.3 million funding from the EPSRC to carry out cutting edge research on the development of mathematical algorithms and theory for extracting information from healthcare data. This award follows on from £2 million awarded in 2016 for the Centre for Mathematical Imaging in Healthcare (CMIH), which was developed to build synergies between applied mathematics and statistics through the joint analysis of clinical imaging, particularly that arising in neurological, cardiovascular and oncology imaging.

Led by Professor Carola Schönlieb, Professor John Aston and Dr James Rudd, the new Hub will further the great work already done and has an overarching objective to develop data analytics algorithms that can integrate imaging and non-imaging data (e.g. health records, memory tests, genomics) and that provide the associated mathematical theory in support of the clinic requirements for healthcare decision-making. This will be done with a focus on some of the most challenging public health problems of our time; Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, and Dementia.

The new CMIH brings together researchers from mathematics, statistics, computer science and medicine, with clinicians and relevant industrial stakeholders to develop rigorous and clinically practical algorithms for analysing healthcare data for personalised diagnosis and treatment, as well as target identification and validation at the population level. Whilst imaging data is a very important diagnostic biomarker, non-imaging data are precious predictive resources that when combined will be the source for AI-based healthcare of the future.

Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb, one of the Hub Directors, said, “This is wonderful news. Everyone involved in the CMIH endeavour has been dedicating an immense amount of expertise, energy and passion into its creation. Being given the chance now to realise our vision of bringing mathematics to the heart of healthcare data and to support the fight against some of the deadliest diseases our population is facing is extremely exciting.”

Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Hubs will be expected to carry out world leading, challenge led, novel research addressing significant mathematical or statistical challenges of direct relevance to Healthcare Technologies.