Barts Life Sciences receives grant to accelerate AI-powered cancer care

Barts Health and and its academic partner Queen Mary, University of London, have been awarded a grant by the UK Government to accelerate AI-powered cancer care.

This grant forms part of £18.9m in funding from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to a team of researchers at Barts Health NHS Trust, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College London, and Queen Mary University of London. This brings the total investment to £43.6 million when combined with contributions from charities, industry partners, and public research organisations. 

Together, the teams will be unlocking NHS cancer data and deploy PharosAI – a platform that accelerates the development and deployment of next-generation AI models. These models will support cancer diagnosis and drug discovery, improving healthcare outcomes for patients.

Barts Life Sciences will support the project by providing expertise in AI development and ensuring that data from the Barts Health Data Platform informs the building of the new AI models. Our academic partners at Queen Mary, University of London, will draw on their expertise in pioneering cancer research and practice-changing collaborative initiatives deploying the Breast Cancer Now Biobank.

Representing the unmatched diversity of North East London and being hosted by one of England’s largest NHS Trusts, these datasets will allow commercial and academic researchers to interrogate, develop and validate AI algorithms for the benefit of people in North East London, the UK and beyond.

“PharosAI will help us to unlock the power of AI to transform cancer care. We look forward to harnessing our strengths in biobanking and data curation here at Queen Mary University of London as part of this partnership.” Professor Sir Mark Caulfield, Vice-Principal for Health at Queen Mary University of London

 “With unmatched access to data representing one of the most diverse communities globally, the benefits of PharosAI will be of benefit to patients across the UK and beyond.” Sven Bunn, Life Sciences Programme Director Barts Life Sciences