EPSRC Centre for Predictive Modelling in Healthcare

Based in the world-class £52.5 million Living Systems Institute on the University of Exeter's Streatham Campus, the Centre for Predictive Modelling in Healthcare at the University of Exeter was established in January 2016 through a £2 million award from the EPSRC. The Centre united researchers from the University of Exeter, University of Birmingham, University of Bristol and Kings College London. The funding was extended until January 2021 and new funding is now supporting the EPSRC Hub for Quantitative Modelling in Healthcare.

The Centre brought together a world-leading team of mathematicians, statisticians and clinicians with a range of industrial partners, people with lived experience of chronic health conditions and other stakeholders to focus on the development of new methods for managing and treating noncommunciable disorders using predictive mathematical and statistical models. In addition to EPSRC support, researchers within the Centre were supported by the MRC, the Wellcome Trust and Epilepsy Research UK.

The focus was on 'dynamic' health conditions such as autoimmune disease, cardiac arrhythmias, diabetes and epilepsy. Aiming to revolutionise the clinical management of these disorders through better understanding the fundamental mechanisms of these disorders, as well as the development of mathematically-underpinned decision support systems. In the longer term these will enable doctors and clinicians to make enhanced diagnosis and prognosis through enhanced interrogation of routinely acquired patient data.

The Centre had six strategic objectives:

To deliver excellence in mathematical and computational research;
To drive clinical translation of fundamental research;
To establish significant industry engagement enabling exploitation of IP;
To engage and involve the public and people with lived experience in co-creating research;
To build long-term international partnerships;
To develop cross-College educational opportunities at all levels.

The research undertaken by the Centre can be divided into three overlapping themes:

Theme 1 is developing the mathematical and statistical underpinning methods for dealing with transient nonlinear systems that will be used in the other themes. It is examining both continuum and network models and uncertainty quantification for linking them to data.
Theme 2 is constructing clinically relevant mathematical and computational models of electrophysiological and neuroendocrine processes.
Theme 3 is prototyping and exploring preclinical discovery in terms of developing new data-driven diagnostic and treatment options.

EPSRC Centres for Mathematical Sciences in Healthcare

Our Centre was one of five funded by the EPSRC, the others include:

If you would like any further information on the work of the Centre please contact Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova.