EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Medical Imaging

This application brings together two world-renowned research- and educational-focused Universities in a unique collaboration to create an interdisciplinary training approach to meet challenges in healthcare. With complementary strengths in basic physical sciences, engineering and clinical translation, close strategic and geographical links and a CDT embedded within a top-rated teaching hospital, the KCL/ICL alliance is superbly placed to train the next generation of imaging scientists and research leaders. The CDT will provide a unique interdisciplinary training program to develop the skills for creating innovative technical solutions through integration of the physical sciences, engineering and biological and clinical disciplines. The Centre will be integrated into a large research portfolio in medical imaging funded through EPSRC/Wellcome Trust Medical Engineering Centres, MRC centres, the CRUK/EPSRC Cancer Imaging Centres, and the BHF Centres of Excellence. In order to foster clinical translation of research, the CDT will be linked into two Academic Health Science Centres and NIHR-Biomedical Research Centres. The CDT will create a critical mass of teachers and researchers to establish an interdisciplinary training program by bringing together students from different disciplines to work on research topics in medical imaging. The CDT will feature a 1 + 3 years MRes+PhD structure and will manage the students as a single cohort. We have developed the different phases of the PhD programme, i.e. Recruitment, MRes, PhD and Alumni, to achieve the highest quality in training, research and career development for the individual student. We place a strong emphasis on clinical translation, therefore the CDT will continue with a formal training programme in clinical applications in parallel to the PhD projects. In addition, the teaching location of the Centre in a dedicated, newly-refurbished CDT teaching hub within a world-class teaching hospital engenders strong links with the NHS and provides further enhanced opportunities for clinical translation. The first and foremost goal of this CDT will be to provide the highest quality supervision for individual students. To achieve this, we will combine the experience of senior supervisors with the energy and development of more junior academics. At the start of the CDT, we will be defining PhD projects from 60 supervisors with world-leading research expertise in the underpinning of the multidisciplinary themes in medical imaging. All of those scientists have a track record in PhD supervision and delivering research funded by research councils. We have also identified clinical champions in three major disease areas (Cardiology, Oncology, Neuro) who will organize training in clinical application. This training is designed to forge interactions between scientists and clinicians. It will provide students with valuable contacts with whom they can discuss clinical implications of their PhD research. The CDT will provide training of a new generation of scientists with skills in interdisciplinary research, clinical translation and entrepreneurship. The focus of both graduate training and the individual student research projects will be to innovate medical imaging technologies in the care cycle of patients across a range of diseases. Another central theme within the program will be training to translate innovations into commercial products. For this, we will leverage our strong industrial links and have obtained financial commitment for more than 25 co-funded industrial CDT studentships from various industrial partners. The partners, including new UK-based SMEs and start-up companies, will also provide internships to enable career paths into industry.