̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Microsoft

New initiative to promote innovation in the Greater Cambridge area

skbf2 — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 12:51:02 +0000

Innovate Cambridge is an initiative to create an inclusive vision for the future of Cambridge and its innovation ecosystem. ̽��ֱ��initiative was launched in September 2022 by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Cambridge Enterprise and Cambridge Innovation Capital. Organisations that have signed up to its charter include local government, start-ups, universities, science parks and investors. As well as announcing its first 100 signatories, Innovate Cambridge has also appointed an Executive Director and established a steering committee.

Tabitha Goldstaub, co-founder of festival and online platform CogX and a UK government advisor, has been appointed Innovate Cambridge’s Executive Director and the Rt Hon. Lord Willetts as Chair of its Steering Committee. Other members of the Steering Committee include Professor Andy Neely, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Professor Yvonne Barnett, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation for Anglia Ruskin ̽��ֱ��, Shaun Grady, AstraZeneca’s Senior Vice-President Business Development Operations and Robert Pollock, Chief Executive of Cambridge City Council.

Cambridge has been a global leader in innovation for decades, with its two universities, thriving start-up community, global businesses and strong investment network. But, “standing still is not an option,” said Diarmuid O’Brien, CEO of Cambridge Enterprise: “Many cities and regions across the world are rapidly getting organised to secure their futures. We must learn from and build on their experiences.”

̽��ֱ��next step, according to Michael Anstey, Partner at Cambridge Innovation Capital, is for the signatories to the Charter, “to come together to define, and then implement, an inclusive, forward-looking vision for the ecosystem, which ensures the City continues to innovate, compete, and deliver impact on a global scale well into the future.”

Professor Andy Neely, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Cambridge has made a difference to the lives of millions of people around the world. A constant source of new ideas and innovations, the Cambridge innovation ecosystem spawns new ideas, technologies and insights that change the way we live and learn. ̽��ֱ��charter is a really exciting next step in the development of the Cambridge innovation ecosystem, bringing together key organisations and people to help shape the future of Greater Cambridge and ensure that together we continue to contribute to society.”

Read about some of the Cambridge start-ups that are having an impact in the UK and around the world here.

100 organisations, including AstraZeneca, Microsoft and Arm, have signed up to a new charter to boost the Cambridge innovation ecosystem and help it address global challenges, announced Innovate Cambridge today (8 December 2022).

̽��ֱ��charter is a really exciting next step in the development of the Cambridge innovation ecosystem, bringing together key organisations and people to help shape the future of Greater Cambridge and ensure that together we continue to contribute to society.

Andy Neely, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations

Innovate Cambridge

Tabitha Goldstaub, Innovate Cambridge’s Executive Director

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Making the digital world a safer place

skbf2 — Wed, 25 May 2022 09:49:36 +0000

New technology developed by Cambridge researchers and Arm to make our computers more secure is being put through its paces by tech companies in the UK and around the world.

AI could help cut waiting times for cancer by automating mark-up of patient scans prior to radiotherapy

cjb250 — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 14:08:25 +0000

̽��ֱ��AI technology, known as InnerEye, is the result of an eight-year collaboration between researchers at Cambridge-based Microsoft Research, Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

InnerEye aims to save clinicians many hours of time laboriously marking up patient scans prior to radiotherapy. ̽��ֱ��team has demonstrated how machine learning (ML) models built using the InnerEye open-source technology can cut this preparation time by up to 90% - meaning that waiting times for starting potentially life-saving radiotherapy treatment can be dramatically reduced.

Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said: “New innovations like this can make all the difference to patients and I am proud to see we are once again leading the way in new cancer treatments.

“Helping people receive treatment faster is incredibly important and will not only improve recovery rates but will save clinicians precious time so they can focus on caring for patients.

“Embracing new technologies will help save lives and is vital for the sustainability of the NHS, and our NHS Long Term Plan will continue to deliver the best possible care for patients so that we can offer faster, more personalised and effective cancer treatment for all.”

Dr Raj Jena from the Department of Oncology at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and an oncologist at Addenbrooke’s, who co-leads InnerEye, said: “These results are a game-changer. To be diagnosed with a tumour of any kind is an incredibly traumatic experience for patients. So as clinicians we want to start radiotherapy promptly to improve survival rates and reduce anxiety. Using machine learning tools can save time for busy clinicians and help get our patients onto treatment as quickly as possible.”

Dr Yvonne Rimmer, also from at Addenbrooke's, said: “There is no doubt that InnerEye is saving me time. It’s very good at understanding where tumours and healthy organs are. It’s speeding up the process so I can concentrate on looking at a patient’s diagnostic images and tailoring treatment to them.

“But it’s important for patients to know that the AI is helping me do my job; it’s not replacing me in the process. I double check everything the AI does and can change it if I need to. ̽��ֱ��key thing is that most of the time, I don’t need to change anything.”

Up to half of the population in the UK will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives. Of those, half will be treated with radiotherapy, often in combination with other treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, and increasingly immunotherapy.

Radiotherapy involves focusing high-intensity radiation beams to damage the DNA of hard cancerous tumours while avoiding surrounding healthy organs. This is a critical tool, with around 40% of successfully treated patients undergoing some form of radiotherapy.

Planning radiotherapy treatment can be a lengthy process. It starts with a 3D CT (Computed Tomography) imaging scan of the part of the body to be targeted. These CT images come in the form of stacks of 2D images, dozens of images deep, each of which must be examined and marked up by a radiation oncologist or specialist technician. This process is called contouring. In each image, an expert must manually draw a contour line around the tumours and key healthy organs at risk in the target area using dedicated computer software. For complex cases, this can take several hours in the planning of a single patient’s treatment.

This image segmentation task is a rate-limiting factor in the cancer treatment pathway for radiotherapy, which increases the burden of time on clinicians and the financial cost to hospitals. As this task is subjective, there can be significant variability across experts and institutions where acquisition protocols and patient demographics vary. This is a limitation to the use of imaging in clinical trials and can introduce variability in patient care.

Research published by the team in JAMA Network Open confirms that the InnerEye ML models can accurately and rapidly carry out the otherwise lengthy ‘image segmentation’ requiring hours of expert clinicians’ time.

Head of Health Intelligence at Microsoft Research, Aditya Nori, said: “This is the first time, we believe, that an NHS Trust has implemented its own deep learning solution trained on their own data, so it can be used on their patients. It paves the way for more NHS Trusts to take advantage of open-source AI tools to help reduce cancer treatment times.”

̽��ֱ��InnerEye Deep Learning Toolkit has been made freely available as open-source software by Microsoft.

While ML models developed using the tool need to be tested and validated in each individual healthcare setting, doctors at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospitals (CUH) have demonstrated how the technology can be applied in clinical settings.

Reference
Ozan Oktay, et al. Evaluation of Deep Learning to Augment Image-Guided Radiotherapy for Head and Neck and Prostate Cancers. JAMA Network Open; 30 Nov 2020; DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.27426

Adapted from press releases from Microsoft and Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Doctors at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge aim to drastically cut cancer waiting times by using artificial intelligence (AI) to automate lengthy radiotherapy preparations.

As clinicians we want to start radiotherapy promptly to improve survival rates and reduce anxiety. Using machine learning tools can save time for busy clinicians and help get our patients onto treatment as quickly as possible

Raj Jena

People Who Change ̽��ֱ��World | Dr Rajesh Jena

Dr Raj Jena and Yvonne Rimmer look at scans

Yes