Groundbreaking UK Health Projects Receive government Funding
Date posted:
News
The government has awarded £32 million in funding for a number of groundbreaking health projects that are set to help transform NHS healthcare delivery.
According to a UK.GOV press release, the new projects to receive the funding are innovative new technological approaches that aim to transform treatments and care in the NHS by 2050, aiding in helping people’s quality of life as they age.
The six projects to have received the funding include non-Invasive Single Neuron Electrical Monitoring (NISNEM), a walk-through cancer diagnosis, multi-modal hearing aids, robotics muscles, quantum imaging for monitoring of wellbeing and disease in communities, and ‘U-care’ which will exploit new laser, optical fibre and imaging technologies.
Science Minister Amanda Solloway announced the projects as part of a keynote speech on research and development at London Tech Week 2020, following the launch of the government’s R&D roadmap in July 2020, which detailed plans to make the UK attractive to the world’s scientists and researchers to work and live.
Revolutionary cancer diagnosis
InlightenUs, the walk-through cancer diagnosis project, which is led by the University of Edinburgh, is to receive £5.4 million to use a combination of infra-red lasers and artificial intelligence (AI) to produce high-resolution 3D images to help identify diseases in patients quickly.
The project is also in partnership with the universities of Nottingham and Southampton. The new research will be developed for use in hospital wards and GP surgeries and aims to scale up to airport-style X-ray scanners by 2050, which will be able to detect structures often hidden in the human body that can reveal tumours.
Robotics muscles
emPower, led by researchers at the University of Bristol and will receive £6 million for the development of artificial robotic muscular assistance to help people who have lost muscle capacity, such as patients who have suffered a stroke or who are living with degenerative diseases like sarcopenia and muscular dystrophy.
The use of such highly targeted robotics will overcome the limitations of current wearable assistive technology of regenerative medicine. Usually, these wearables can be bulky and uncomfortable for the user to wear, and often need two people to put on and take off. Users have reported that the movements of the wearables are too slow.
Through using robots, emPOWER will provide life-changing benefits for sufferers, restoring their confidence, independence, and quality of life, all while reducing the cost to the NHS.
MP Amanda Solloway said: “The pioneering projects we are backing today will help modernise healthcare, improving all of our lives now and into the future.”
“Today’s announcement is part of our ambitious R&D Roadmap and underlines our commitment to back our incredible scientists and researchers and invest in ground-breaking research to keep the UK ahead in cutting-edge discoveries.”
The funding is being delivered through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, through the Transformative Healthcare Technologies for 2050.
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