Dr Weizi Li to lead £1 million blood testing research using digital technologies

Dr Weizi (Vicky) Li from Henley Business School is leading a new £1 million research network project into blood testing and digital technologies, to help address challenges in community health and care.

The project, titled 'Future blood testing for inclusive monitoring and personalised analytics Network+', is majority funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The proposed Network+ will build an interdisciplinary community to explore future blood testing solutions to enable remote, faster, affordable, more inclusive and personalised blood monitoring and analytics. The network will address three key technical challenges in blood testing: remote monitoring and point of care devices; ICT and data connectivity; and personalised data analytic and AI, in a range of exemplar clinical areas.

There is very high demand for lab-based blood tests from community settings in the UK and analysis suggests an important role in the future for remote blood monitoring and personal analytics. This would enable patients and health professionals to carry out their own tests remotely, greatly benefiting patients and speeding up decision-making.

Dr Li is the Principal Investigator for the research, with co-investigators from University of Southampton, University of Warwick, University of Nottingham and University of Kent.

Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust is among the project partners, which include six NHS hospitals as well as international universities and companies.

The EPSRC grant contribution is £800,898, with a final project cost on the grant offer of over £1 million (£1,001,123).

Dr Li, Associate Professor of Informatics and Digital Health in the Department of Business Informatics, Systems and Accounting, said:

“This grant will enable us to build a community to address multi-disciplinary challenges focused on computational science, engineering and physical science, as well as medical and social science, to achieve the vision of future blood testing.

The three key research areas together will eventually enable new digital systems to support real-time blood monitoring, self-management and timely intervention, where we will co-develop real-world applications with our clinical and commercial partners.”

The three-year project is due to start in September. Read the full EPSRC grant details.

Dr Li would welcome anyone who is interested in addressing key healthcare challenges through the lens of future blood testing technologies to join the research community by emailing her at weizi.li@henley.ac.uk.