Insight Health Data Research Hub

20/11/2025

Consider supporting the world-leading eye research funded by Moorfields Eye Charity at Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, and buy a Christmas raffle ticket this year.

06/11/2025

INSIGHT has been awarded £3.7 million in funding by UKRI Medical Research Council and the NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre to expand from Moorfields Eye Hospital and link national health data resources, consolidating the UK as the global leader in ophthalmology and research and innovation.

Led by Pearse Keane and delivered with Moorfields’ strategic partner UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, the four-year project will include:

- on-boarding other NHS sites, including Sunderland Eye Infirmary at South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, and creating a comprehensive, interoperable research resource for ophthalmic data

- broadening national data linkages to integrate genetic data from the NIHR BioResource and UK Biobank and accelerate research — using biomarkers in the eye to detect systemic conditions such as dementia and cardiovascular disease

- a major programme of public and patient involvement and engagement

🔗 Find out more:

The UK will benefit from a new initiative to scale the INSIGHT Health Data Research Hub for Eye Health and Oculomics – the world’s largest collection of curated eye imaging and linked clinical data at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

03/11/2025

Writing for Forbes, reporter Cathy Rubin covers 'code-to-clinic' progress in AI for eye care, with the goal of preventing avoidable sight loss.

Cathy interviews leaders in the field, including Pearse Keane, whose inter-disciplinary research group at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital is leading the way in developing fair, robust medical AI for detection of eye disease and systemic conditions.

The article covers Pearse's work leading INSIGHT to become the world's largest ophthalmic bioresource for health data research and AI training, and the deployment of RETFound, the world's first AI foundation model for eye health. .

More than 2.2 billion people live with near- or distance-vision impairment, and about 1 billion of those cases were preventable

30/10/2025

Every year, an estimated 40,000 new cases of wet Age-related Macular Degeneration are diagnosed in the UK. To tackle the challenge of rising patient numbers and staffing shortages, a new study has validated an AI system to identify patients who are being under-treated or over-treated for AMD.

This means patients most in need of care could be prioritised for treatment and seen more quickly.

The research, led by Jeff Hogg and Pearse Keane, compared AI-enabled assessments of wet AMD disease activity against real-world clinical assessments at two major NHS eye centres, Moorfields Eye Hospital and Newcastle Eye Centre.

Work by colleagues at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology Moorfields Eye Hospital NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre

Using artificial intelligence (AI) in eye clinics could reduce both undertreatment and overtreatment of neovascular or ‘wet’ age-related macular degeneration (AMD)

21/10/2025

Professor Pearse Keane has been elected to the US National Academy of Medicine in recognition of his pioneering role developing medical artificial intelligence in ophthalmology, and forging the novel field of - using biomarkers in the eye to detect systemic disease.

Pearse is one of ten international members and 90 US members elected for 2025, announced at the Academy's annual meeting in Washington DC.

Pearse is Professor of Artificial Medical Intelligence at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital and director of the INSIGHT Eye Hub. His work is supported by NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre and Moorfields Eye Charity.

Read more ⬇️

Professor Pearse Keane has been elected to the US National Academy of Medicine (NAM) in recognition of his pioneering role developing medical artificial intelligence (AI) in ophthalmology and forging the novel field of Oculomics - using biomarkers in the eye to detect systemic disease.

10/10/2025

With an ambition to build the world's first medical AI model with globally representative data, our colleague Paul Nderitu speaks with Alun Evans at The Ophthalmologist about a new initiative across more than 65 countries spanning every continent except Antarctica

Evolving from Pearse Keane's AI lab at Moorfields Eye Hospital, UCL Institute of Ophthalmology NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre, the project will result in Global RETFound, a foundation model for detection of eye disease and systemic conditions, using novel data sharing strategies. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eHz3rJpW

🌍 This , one message is clear: the future of vision care must be global, equitable, and data-driven.

The new Global RETFound initiative brings together 100+ research groups across 65 countries to build the world’s first globally representative AI foundation model in ophthalmology — trained on over 100 million eye images.

Led by researchers from the National University of Singapore, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Moorfields Eye Hospital, and UCL, this collaboration aims to ensure that AI in eye care works for every population, not just a few.

👉 We spoke with Paul Nderitu to find out more: https://ow.ly/pSFw50X8XMf

30/09/2025

As World ’s Month comes to a close, we look forward to new research possibilities thanks to an unprecedented data linkage project called AlzEye.

AlzEye connects millions of retinal images from Moorfields Eye Hospital with hospital data across England to accelerate Oculomics research - using the eye as a window to systemic health. This makes it possible to explore patterns of retinal change associated with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.

Siegfried Wagner leads this project with Pearse Keane across Moorfields and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, and has now agreed an extension with NHS England, expanding the data linkage with Hospital Episode Statistics to cover a period of 16 years including cause of death certificates. Creation of the AlzEye dataset is made possible through INSIGHT's data pipeline and infrastructure.

Here, Siegfried describes how these linkages are accelerating research into systemic diseases using images of the eye.
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Read more about AlzEye: 🔗https://www.insight.hdrhub.org/alzeye

22/09/2025

This National Eye Health Week, we highlight the role of heath data research in confronting the global challenge of vision loss. Around 2.2 billion people globally have visual impairment, which could have been prevented or is yet to be addressed in almost half of cases, according to The World Health Organisation.

To tackle the scale of the problem, researchers are harnessing patient data to identify early biomarkers of vision loss and develop new treatments, with the goal of preventing blindness.

NHS patient data is enabling sight-saving research through INSIGHT - the Health Data Research Hub programme for eye health led by Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Under the direction of Pearse Keane, INSIGHT has grown to become the world's largest bioresource of ophthalmic imaging linked to medical records, made accessible for medical research.

Find out how INSIGHT's growing pipeline of routinely collected, anonymised patient data is accelerating research into vision loss:
🔗 https://www.insight.hdrhub.org/datasavessight

18/09/2025

Kerataconus is a sight-threatening condition affecting around 1 in 350 people. It most commonly develops in teenagers and young adults, worsening as they get older. One of the challenges is monitoring thinning of the cornea, which can lead to vision loss and the need for a transplant, if not caught in time and treated with cross-linking — a non-invasive course of vitamin B drops and controlled UV exposure.

Now researchers have developed an AI tool that can accurately predict which patients are most at risk of corneal thinning and require cross-linking.

As a next step, the research team are building the first comprehensive AI foundation model for the front of the eye, KeraFOUND - for detection of conditions affecting the anterior segment, like kerataconus. Using 1.75 million eye images curated by INSIGHT Eye Hub at Moorfields, the model will also be trained for hashtag tasks such as early detection of strokes, cardiovascular disease and dementia.

The research was led by Shafi Balal at Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, supported by the NIHR, Moorfields Eye Charity, NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre.

Read more 🔽

AI can accurately predict when young people with the sight-threatening eye condition kerataconus need treatment to stabilise the cornea and prevent loss of vision

08/09/2025

An ambitious research consortium is building the world’s first healthcare AI foundation model with globally representative data - trained on 100 million eye images from 65+ countries.

The project is a collaborative effort involving 100 research groups around the world, led by Keane’s AI lab at Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology; Yih Chung Tham 覃宇宗 at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine; Carol Cheung at 香港中文大學合唱團 The Chinese University of Hong Kong Chorus.

The work is supported by NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre and Moorfields Eye Charity and enabled by the INSIGHT Health Data Research Hub at Moorfields.

Find out more by clicking on the image below ⬇️

A research consortium of over 100 study groups in more than 65 countries has launched the Global RETFound initiative, a collaborative effort to develop the first globally representative Artificial Intelligence (AI) foundation model in medicine, using 100 million eye images.

04/09/2025

Researchers at Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology are leading the way in developing healthcare AI that uses far less computing power than previous training approaches.

This proof-of-concept model shows that even medical teams in places with little access to high-tech equipment could build AI tools to improve patient care.

The work was supported by NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre.

Find out more below ⬇️

In a step forward for sustainable medical artificial intelligence (AI), researchers at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, University College London (UCL) Institute of Ophthalmology, and University of Edinburgh have developed a ‘green’ training approach for medical AI in ophthalmology,...

28/08/2025

A novel AI tool could transform screening for millions of patients taking — by spotting early signs of eye damage, years before patients or doctors notice any symptoms or warning signs.

Hydroxychloroquine is a commonly prescribed drug for arthritis and autoimmune diseases such as lupus. In long-term users, the drug can lead to irreversible vision loss in the form of hydroxychloroquine retinopathy, if not caught early enough.

Developed in Pearse Keane's research lab at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital with collaborators in the UK and US, the AI tool was able to detect retinopathy on average 2.5 years earlier than clinicians.

The work was enabled by INSIGHT and supported by NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre.

Read more:

A novel AI tool could transform screening for patients taking hydroxychloroquine by spotting early signs of eye damage