Technologies

The consumer market for digital health apps is surging, with over 350,000 products now available. The market was undoubtedly stimulated by the Covid19 pandemic, consumers independently searching for products to support their mental and physical health. However, the quality and effectiveness of available apps varies enormously, relatively few having been subject to rigorous testing and evaluation. CHT has a long history (from our prize-winning epSMon app) of both co-designing and evaluating health apps with patients, clinicians and researchers, ensuring that design benefits from expert input. Recent examples include NMS assist, an app to help people with Parkinson’s and their carers remotely monitor and manage their non-motor symptoms; and externally funded evaluations of the Wysa, NoObesity and Families and Technology Enhanced integrAted asthMa care (TEAM-care) apps.

VR is increasingly used in healthcare as an educational tool. Hardware limitations of headsets have raised questions about the practicality of prolonged use by vulnerable or frail patients, though recent advances in mobile-based light-weight headsets have been shown to be feasible to deploy in challenging healthcare settings. There are now plausible studies demonstrating the potential value of VR in supporting a range of physical, mental, or psychosocial health outcomes, including pain management, cognition and depression. CHT has strong capabilities in the development and application of virtual, augmented and immersive reality technologies, from design and software development to implementation and clinician/patient/public experience of using such technologies. Recent examples include the EPSRC-funded ICONIC project and the ESRPC-funded GOALD project where extended reality is giving participants the ability to move around heritage sites and natural landscapes.

At CHT, we are investigating the development and use of humanoid and companion robots, and other digital devices, such as voice activated assistants, to transform the provision of health and care, from assistive living and health monitoring to cognitive training and social engagement. Enabled by artificial intelligence and machine learning these technologies are able to interact with and respond to people, adapting to their behaviour, emotions and needs to better support their health and wellbeing. Recent projects include Movecare, EPIC and Akara as well as an interdisciplinary initiative between dentistry, robotics and cyber security to explore the use of socially-assistive robots to reduce anxiety and stress in dental care.

CHT is a pioneer in the development of Brain-Computer Music Interfaces (BCMI) to enable people with severe motor-impairment to make music by means of brain signals. We are championing the development innovative intelligent systems that can monitor affective state, and induce specific affective states through music, automatically and adaptively. In the EPSRC-funded RadioMe project, we are harnessing Artificial Intelligence to adapt and personalise live radio, by seamlessly remixing live digital broadcast, with the aim of transforming life for people living alone with dementia. Listeners receive personalised reminders, information and music according to monitored behaviour and real-time physiological measurements.

There are numerous applications of AI/ML. AI is being used in conjunction with other technologies, such as assistive music technology (RadioMe). AI platforms can also leverage real world data to provide insights as to which patients can benefit from e.g., home-based technologies to manage the risk upfront to lower downstream costs or specialised more targeted treatments. Examples of CHT projects include the use of deep phenotyping to predict the development of colorectal cancer stages, including the potential return of cancer after treatment and associated multimorbidity; the use of genomics and AI to predict responses to chemotherapy in breast cancer; and the use of AI to enable the safe and effective use of medications. Whether applied to specific groups (such as childbearing women with Epilepsy) or local populations as a whole, we have a strong record of applying AI and statistics in health and biomedical informatics identify the complex interactions between socioeconomic, cultural and environmental factors that contribute to individual- and population-level health outcomes. We also evaluate externally products, such as DORA, a natural language AI assistant and call system designed to carry out post-operative checks to monitor complications and assess success following cataract surgery.

Bioengineering is a multidisciplinary STEM field that integrates knowledge across engineering, materials science, biology and medicine to develop new devices, algorithms, processes and systems that improve medical practice and health care delivery. Our research focuses on advanced engineering materials and the use of nanotechnology to build novel composites, biomaterials and implants with improved mechanical, physical and antibacterial properties with the aim to improve clinical outcomes. Within dentistry, for example, researchers have applied biological and molecular technologies including transgenic modelling, organoids, 3D bioprinting, 3D skin and oral mucosa stratification simulation as well as using 3 dimensional in vitro oral mucosal models to develop denture wear and salivary gland repair processes.

In 2022, a study revealed that 1.25 million people per year die of antimicrobial resistant infections globally. Bacteria are evolving to develop resistance to the antibiotics we are using to treat them, rendering them ineffective to combat infection. A key way to manage infection is to rapidly diagnose infections at the point of care. The Molecular Microbiology Research Group focuses on understanding the mechanism of C. difficile spore resistance to biocides (e.g., chlorine releasing agents), evaluating the efficacy of new technologies to disinfect C. difficile, and molecular techniques to understand spore epidemiology. The group is also developing a point of care device able to aid clinicians in diagnosing AMR infections (particularly in the urinary tract), thus aiding antimicrobial stewardship. This interdisciplinary research is at the cutting edge of engineering, biophysics and molecular microbiology.