The flagship scheme will help to develop their careers while tackling ambitious challenges.
Dr Pearse Keane is an NIHR Clinician Scientist, based at the Institute of Ophthalmology, and an honorary consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital. He leads a programme of applied clinical research in artificial intelligence (AI) at Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL IoO. As part of this, he initiated the long-term collaboration between Moorfields NHS Foundation Trust and DeepMind. He works closely with the Moorfields Image Reading Centre on this and a number of other independent research projects.
He will be funded as a UK Research and Innovation's Future Leader Fellow for work involving the development and application of AI in the NHS.
Dr Keane said:
I am thrilled to be awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship! I first heard about this scheme in early 2019. Its objective to provide flexible, long-term funding for ambitious research immediately caught my eye. In particular, the scheme aims to fund research and innovation at the boundary between disciplines and at the boundary between academia and industry. For me, this is a match made in heaven as my work will focus on leading the development and application of artificial intelligence in the NHS. I believe that artificial intelligence has the potential to transform healthcare and that ophthalmology will be at the forefront of this transformation. With support from UKRI, I believe that the NHS and indeed the UK as a whole can lead the world in AI-enabled healthcare.
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