Project description
The future of retinal health monitoring
As lifespans extend, ensuring that longevity is paired with health and functionality presents a challenge. Continuous access to healthcare services and persistent health monitoring are crucial. The human retina offers a unique window into overall health, revealing signs of ageing, neurodegeneration, and cardiovascular conditions. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) provides detailed retina images, but such devices are not easily accessible or portable. In this context, the ERC-funded HealthAEye project leverages smartphone technology and AI to make retinal health monitoring more accessible. By advancing AI models, the project aims to achieve diagnostic accuracy using smartphone-based fundus images, potentially revolutionising personalised healthcare with a scalable and portable solution for monitoring retinal diseases.
Objective
The gift of longevity carries with it a host of complexities in ensuring that lifespans are not only prolonged but also healthy and functional. Effective health strategies must be deeply embedded in a framework that provides continuous access to healthcare services. This involves persistent monitoring of both health and illness.
The human retina stands out as an invaluable window into one’s health, shown to reflect not only ocular diseases but also aging, neurodegeneration, and heart function. High-end optical imaging devices such as optical coherence tomography (OCT) provide clinicians with remarkably clear pictures of the living retina. However, they are not widely accessible and portable for personal use. With the drastic improvements in smartphone optical and sensory capabilities, taking diagnostic-quality snapshots of the eye fundus is becoming a viable option. This poses a paramount opportunity to turn the smartphone imaging with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) into a powerful health monitoring tool.
The proposed research will advance the AI methodology and provide a proof-of-concept in retinal disease monitoring. It is based on the hypothesis that the disease-specific biomarkers visible on gold-standard 3D OCT imaging are recoverable with AI from 2D portable fundus imaging provided by smartphones. In a unique interdisciplinary setting, it aims to (i) build multimodal foundation AI models based on a large amount of available retrospective imaging data, (ii) advance the AI methodology to distill across the imaging modalities the knowledge accrued by the models, and (iii) in a clinical study demonstrate that AI models operating on smartphone-based fundus images are comparable to their high-end optical imaging counterparts across diagnostic tasks. The work will lead to a potentially disruptive, accessible and scalable technology for monitoring of retinal changes and disease activity having a lasting impact on patients and public health.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1090 Wien
Austria
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.