The Institute of Biomedical Engineering (IBME) and Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (NDOG) at the University of Oxford announced today that it is a Grand Challenges Explorations winner, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The award will enable Ana Namburete from the Biomedical Image Analysis Laboratory at the IBME and Bryn Kemp (NDOG) to collaborate on an innovative global health and development research project, titled “A Machine Learning-Based Tool to Estimate Gestational Age”. Designed specifically for non-specialist healthcare workers within low-income settings, the product uses ultrasound images of the fetal brain to automatically estimate gestational age (GA).
Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) funds individuals worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges. The Oxford project is one of more than 50 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 14 grants announced today by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
To receive funding, the Oxford team and other Grand Challenges Explorations winners demonstrated in a two-page online application a bold idea in one of five critical global heath and development topic areas that included development of the new ways to measure fetal and infant brain development. The foundation will be accepting applications for the next GCE round in September 2015.
Ana Namburete is a biomedical engineer from Mozambique who conducted her doctoral research in fetal ultrasound image analysis of the developing brain under the supervision of Professor Alison Noble at the IBME. Ana’s research interest is to create medical solutions designed for the developing world; she has developed a machine-learning based tool capable of automatically estimating GA using a single 3D image of the fetal brain.
Ana will lead the technical aspects of this exciting project, in collaboration with Bryn Kemp, an Obstetrician and Clinical Lecturer, who spent several years working in rural Kenya developing a perinatal research programme. Supervised by Professors Aris Papageorghiou and Stephen Kennedy, Bryn has first-hand experience of the unique challenges associated with perinatal care in low-income settings and will work with Ana to develop a tool that enhances perinatal care in settings where reliable estimates of GA are frequently unavailable.