The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data is set to revolutionise medicine, including cancer detection. Momentum in the field is building with key players such as Google(1) and Microsoft(2) applying AI to big data in an attempt to improve cancer detection, and the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy pledge of £210 million for using big data and analytics to progress early diagnosis and precision medicine research.

The healthcare market for AI is predicted to exceed £7.5 billion by 2024(3), and diagnostics is a major component. However, the potential for AI and big data to detect cancer earlier and benefit patients is far from the current reality, with little research translated into clinical practice to date.

Cancer Research UK is seeking to improve the translation of early detection research; we recognise that increased collaboration between academia and industry will help facilitate this. In partnership with the Innovate UK’s network partner, The Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), we are hosting an academia-industry networking event on ‘Early Detection of Cancer using Big Data and AI’. The aim of the meeting is to bring together academic (including clinicians) and commercial researchers to forge new collaborations in the area of big data and AI for cancer detection. We welcome researchers with expertise in this area, as well as researchers with large datasets looking for collaborations to mine them. Confirmed speakers include Professor Dame Sue Hill, Chief Scientist, NHS England, Professor Mark Caulfield, Chief Scientist, Genomics England and Dr Kenji Takeda, Director of Health and AI at Microsoft.

The event will be held in the lead up to Cancer Research UK’s new Early Detection Primer Award, which offers up to £100,000 seed funding for novel ideas and can include new collaborations, with little to no preliminary data required. The meeting will include presentations of other available funding opportunities (including <£2.5 million for early detection research), plenary talks and sessions involving pairing of academic and industry researchers based on complementarity, as well as plenty of opportunity for networking.

The free one-day meeting will be held on 25 January 2019, from 10am-5pm, in King’s Cross, London. The agenda will be made available soon. Travel expenses for academic researchers will be reimbursed.

Registration for this event has now closed. To join the waitlist please email lauren.kerr@cancer.org.uk. Please also sign up to our Early Detection Collaboration Matchmaker.

1 https://deepmind.com/blog/applying-machine-learning-mammography/

2 https://news.microsoft.com/stories/computingcancer/

3 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/healthcare-artificial-intelligence-market

Registrations are closed

ACADEMIA-INDUSTRY NETWORKING EVENT: USING BIG DATA & AI TO DETECT CANCER