Key elements: New algorithms for biomedical modelling + HeartFlow team base at Imperial + funded research roles

HeartFlow collaboration brings personalised heart disease diagnosis closer

We are delighted to collaborate with the team at Imperial, who are globally recognised leaders in applying deep learning techniques to medical imaging."

Dr John H. Stevens

President and CEO, HeartFlow

Imperial's bioimaging experts are partnering with the Californian SME HeartFlow to improve how the company models the heart's blockages.  

HeartFlow offers a non-invasive method to detect and quantify blockages in arteries by using 3D scans of patients' hearts to simulate blood flow and aid diagnosis.

Academics from the Department of Computing will now assist the company in developing new algorithms that 'learn' and improve as they analyse datasets to provide increasingly accurate models.

The collaboration will be led by Imperial's Dr Ben Glocker and Professor Daniel Reuckert and will involve co-locating a HeartFlow team at the College.

Dr Glocker, Senior Lecturer in Medical Image Computing said "The collaboration with HeartFlow will not only open new and exciting research directions, but it will also pave the way for bringing our latest deep learning technology into clinical practices and thus will have real impact on the healthcare of thousands of patients."

HeartFlow will also fund additional research roles at the lab.  The team will work on a joint project initially focused on developing algorithms for extracting models of the coronary arteries from 3D scans over time, improving alignment of images and improving the precision of image acquisition and reconstruction.

You can read the full news article here.

Ben Glocker in lab