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BHF awards £1m to accelerate heart research at

14 October 2019

British Heart Foundation are are boosting the profile of cardiovascular research at University College London () in the hope of giving more people with heart and circulatory diseases longer and better lives.

Abstract depiction of heart health and artificial intelligence

The British Heart Foundation have awarded £1 million to support to develop a new team of scientists to tackle cardiovascular disease by applying advances in computer science to big data.        
From detailed imaging to healthcare data, the Accelerator Award will focus on machine learning to generate the tools and insights needed to better predict, diagnose and treat heart and circulatory conditions.  

What will the funding deliver? 

Led by , Director of Institute of Cardiovascular Science and based at the IHI, the funding will benefit a number of digital healthcare projects including a new research centre for artificial intelligence (AI) in partnership with Cisco Systems, collaboration with The Alan Turning Institute to advance AI in healthcare, and H’s electronic patient record system.  
Professor Hingorani said: “We are thrilled to be recipients of a £1M 5-year BHF Research Accelerator Award. The Accelerator has been designed with the purpose of fostering multi-disciplinary collaboration across faculties coalescing expertise in cardiovascular and population science, health informatics, computer science, engineering and computational biology through jointly supervised academic posts.” 
The funding will be used to strengthen and grow key NHS partnerships beyond H, with the high volume general and specialist cardiovascular services at Barts Heart Centre, as well as at Great Ormond Street (for children’s cardiovascular disease) and Royal Free Hospitals (which include national referral centres for pulmonary hypertension and a number of inherited conditions).  

The Accelerator Awards provide £1 million over 5 years to encourage pioneering research of the highest calibre. This flexible funding model means that the most innovative and inspirational research ideas can rapidly get off the ground.