Insight Health Data Research Hub

05/08/2025

Meet some of the scientists working on research that could prevent avoidable vision loss, thanks to funding from Moorfields Eye Charity.

In the past year, the charity has awarded almost £20 million in grants to discovery and translational science, clinical trials, new equipment and more across Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology.

Find out how you could help to support this transformational research by donating to the charity's appeal ⬇️

Could you power our next research breakthrough?

Right now, our brilliant researchers are each tackling a different piece of the puzzle to try and prevent vision loss for you and your loved ones.

It’s a really exciting time to get involved. Please give whatever you can to support more cutting-edge eye research at Moorfields.

Click the link below to learn more and donate, if you can:
https://brnw.ch/21wUxJO

23/07/2025

As broadcast on ITV News, journalist Kevin Ashford recently visited Moorfields Eye Hospital to meet some of the clinical researchers at the forefront of developing medical AI to improve patient care. Much of this work is enabled by large-scale data curation and computing infrastructure provided by INSIGHT.

Kevin spoke with Shafi Balal and Josef Huemer, who work alongside Pearse Keane's medical AI lab spanning Moorfields and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology. Both Josef and Shafi are exploring new frontiers of , including using features of the retina to predict risk of hashtag , and analysing the front of the eye, the anterior segment, for associations with systemic disease.

Watch the full reel and read the backstory 🔗 http://bit.ly/4nTRhyu

18/07/2025

While drug discovery has historically focused on identifying a limited number of targets, foundation models have the ability to dramatically expand the scope of exploration.

Building on the novel field of , we are working with biotech company insitro to develop an AI foundation model capable of identifying novel targets in neurodegenerative and eye diseases.

Over the next year, our data science team led by Pearse Keane, will work with insitro's research scientists to train the model on millions of retinal images curated from routine patient visits at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

How will it work, and what is the anticipated impact on patients?

Discover more on our dedicated web page 🔗 https://www.insight.hdrhub.org/insitrocollaboration and look out for future updates as the project progresses.

INSIGHT and insitro, a US biotech company, are collaborating to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) foundation model trained on INSIGHT’s vast repository of anonymised retinal imaging data at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

07/07/2025

Can the eye reveal information about a person's socioeconomic background?

Researcher Shubhank Verma has analysed eye imaging data linked to hospital records in England for more than 90,000 individuals.

His study has shown that patients in areas of greater socioeconomic deprivation have retinal features suggestive of accelerated ageing.

Shubhank is a medical student at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, visiting Pearse Keane's AI lab, spanning UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Discover more about Shubhank's work, and read about the other researchers from the Keane lab, who are helping to shape the future of eye care.
🔗 https://bit.ly/4kkt01Z

The group's work is enabled by the INSIGHT eye hub at Moorfields, which provides access to a continually updated pipeline of curated data and advanced computing infrastructure.
NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre

02/07/2025

We were delighted to welcome ITV News to Moorfields Eye Hospital to investigate 'AI for good' for an upcoming programme.

Reporter Kevin Ashford interviewed consultant ophthalmologist Josef Huemer on the evolution of - using the eye to detect systemic conditions such as dementia and heart disease. Josef shared details of his current oculomics project: using retinal images and AI to transform detection of , one of the major causes of stroke.

Kevin also spoke with ophthalmic surgeon Shafi Balal on how AI, trained on INSIGHT's large-scale datasets is expanding clinical understanding of conditions affecting the front of the eye, such as .

Shafi is developing AI for more precise monitoring of keratoconus, which affects mostly working age people and can lead to vision loss with the need for a corneal implant. The objective? Reducing waiting times for specialist appointments and reducing burden on both patients and the NHS.

Stay tuned for the broadcast date!

Find out more about the data and AI expertise that INSIGHT offers to medical researchers who are working for patient benefit: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/ef2WjDej

UCL Institute of Ophthalmology NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre

25/06/2025

In an interview with The Ophthalmologist, co-founder of Cascader Ltd, Pearse Keane, shares the company’s strategy for taking ophthalmic from academic research to the clinic.

The company is built on a partnership that brings together clinical expertise from Moorfields Eye Hospital, research depth from UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, and technical capability from Topcon Healthcare.

As Pearse explains, Cascader's mission is to turn research into world-leading innovation - benefitting patients in the UK and globally.

Click below to read the interview.

The story behind Cascader, a new AI-based med-tech company in the eyecare space

20/06/2025

A new video series has been launched to tackle mistrust in health research and encourage participation, especially from people in underrepresented communities.

Dressed in style for Day, our colleague Roxanne Crosby-Nwaobi, team members and supporters, shared the story behind the videos and why inclusive research is vital to ensure healthcare works for everyone.

Find out more and find the link to the videos below.

18/06/2025

Public participation in health and care research is vital in order to drive medical discovery, such as the genomics clinical trial work being undertaken by Samantha Malka through the NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre

We interviewed Samantha Malka, the BRC Research Manager, about her work in clinical trials. She breaks down how it works, as well as the challenges and breakthroughs.

Read the full interview: https://moorfieldsbrc.nihr.ac.uk/interview-with-samantha-malka-on-her-work-in-clinical-trials/



Life-changing treatments start with people like you. Both healthy people and those with health conditions are needed to take part in health research.

UCL Institute of│Moorfields Eye Hospital

16/06/2025

A new study by researchers at Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology has raised concerns about the evidence behind Artificial Intelligence eye imaging devices already approved for patient care.

🔍 1 in 5 tools had no peer-reviewed data
👁 Only 8% tested in real clinical settings
📊 Gaps in age, gender & ethnicity reporting

While AI holds promise to improve early detection and reduce preventable vision loss, especially in areas with few eye specialists, this review urges caution. It calls for better transparency, real-world testing, and more inclusive data.

🔗 Read more: https://bit.ly/3FDs1LS

A review of regulator-approved medical AI models in eye care has found that they vary widely in providing evidence for clinical performance and lacked transparency about training data.

04/06/2025

One of the new frontiers in , retinal imaging data is being used to explore earlier detection and management of bowel diseases.

Meet the researchers investigating these links in the Pearse Keane medical AI lab, spanning UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Oscar Earle is working on a UK study, assessing the retinal age gap—calculated as the difference between the biological age of a person's retina and their chronological age—as a potential biomarker in people with ulcerative colitis, a particularly aggressive form of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).

Rohan Misra is studying how retinal vascular properties and retinal layer thicknesses may be associated with IBD. Rohan outlines the potential for using retinal images for screening and disease management in place of invasive procedures such as colonoscopies.

Both projects use the AlzEye data linkage initiative led by Siegfried Wagner.

Discover more about their work, and read about the other researchers from the Keane lab, who recently presented at ARVO.

🔗 https://bit.ly/4kkt01Z

27/05/2025

Thank you for your support Moorfields Eye Charity, and for giving us opportunities to share the importance of health data in unlocking medical discovery.

Yesterday, the Insight Health Data Research Hub hosted a health data research pop-up at Moorfields Eye Hospital, inviting patients, staff, and members of the public to discover how routinely collected eye scan data is being used to advance earlier detection, treatment, and care of disease.

INSIGHT director, Pearse Keane, INSIGHT's team of research data scientists, and members of the Insight patient representative group answered questions and explained the role of data in research.

The pop-up event is part of INSIGHT’s ongoing Data Saves Sight campaign.

Read more here: https://brnw.ch/21wSSHA

23/05/2025

Thanks to everyone who visited our Data Saves Sight pop-up at Moorfields Eye Hospital. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet patients, staff and members of the public, and let them know how routinely collected eye data is anonymised, curated and made accessible for world-leading research.

We were joined by our patient representative Rick Shah, INSIGHT director Pearse Keane and fellow researchers Siegfried Wagner, Eden Ruffell, Dominic Williamson, who lead health data and medical AI projects spanning Moorfields and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology

Among those who stopped by, we were delighted to speak with the secretariat of our Data Trust Advisory Board, Tara Lee of the Open Data Institute, journalist Abigail Hodder from Future Medicine AI and Danika Dougherty of Diagnostics.

As always, we are grateful for support from Friends of Moorfields Moorfields Eye Charityi NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre.

To find out more, visit our Data Saves Sight page: 🔗 https://bit.ly/48IdvuH