Northern Ireland Centre for Stratified Medicine

Description

The Northern Ireland Centre for Stratified Medicine aims to identify how our genes or patterns in levels and state of molecules within our bodies, or subtle differences in medical images, could be used to create robust clinical decision making tests for a range of degenerative diseases. We have the largest single critical mass of researchers solely focused on stratified medicine in Ireland. We have 23 Core staff, 19 PhD students, and 36 NHS Clinicians affiliated to our Research centre inkling General Practitioners (GPs) and NHS Health Trusts (predominantly from the Western Health & Social care Trust at Altnagelvin Hospital). In addition to our own core team of molecular biologists, clinicians and bioinformaticians/data scientists, we also work closely with the Computer Science Research Institute within the Faculty of Computing & Engineering, particularly in relation to advanced data analytics and healthcare informatics. Work into the application of digital technology in healthcare is a major focus. This is otherwise known as digital health. Our work involves the application of human-computer interaction and data science techniques to healthcare research. Our work in the past has involved health data analytics as well as the modelling, processing and visualisation of medical data to enhance clinical decision-making including the creation of decision support systems. We also have research interests in computerised simulation-based training in healthcare, usability engineering methods to improve medical devices, eye-gaze analytics in decision science, and is also involved in developing computerised models for healthcare monitoring and interventions. The Centre was established in Autumn 2013 following an award of £11.5M (from European Union Regional Development Fund (ERDF) EU Sustainable Competitiveness Programme for N. Ireland, InvestNI, the Northern Ireland Public Health Agency (HSC R&D), ILEX & Ulster University) to Professor Tony Bjourson (Director).