Project description
AI-driven retinal imaging for early detection of vascular disease
Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases often progress silently until advanced stages when treatment options are limited. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the VRISTA project will develop a multimodal, explainable AI framework that combines 3D OCT-derived voxel-based morphometry, colour fundus imaging, and a retinal ageing biomarker to enable early and interpretable prediction of vascular risk across diverse populations and clinical settings. The system will integrate advanced deep learning, self-supervised pretraining, and knowledge distillation to ensure high performance even in low-resource environments while using large UK and Japanese datasets for robust validation and fairness analysis across key demographic groups. Overall, the project supports healthier ageing and improved preventive care.
Objective
Retinal imaging offers a non-invasive window on the body's vascular and neural health. This fellowship will develop and validate a multimodal AI framework. At its core is voxel-based morphometry applied to three-dimensional OCT to map subtle, layer-specific structural deviations. These maps will be combined with features from colour fundus photographs and a biological ageing biomarker, the retinal age gap. The objective is early, interpretable prediction of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular risk with performance that is robust across devices, ethnicities, and clinical settings. We will adapt VBM, a well established technique in brain imaging, to OCT volumes to produce anatomically aligned deviation maps that quantify where the retina differs from expected patterns. These OCT features will be fused with macro-scale fundus cues within a deep learning model that estimates continuous, calibrated risk and time-to-event outcomes. To enable screening in settings without OCT, we will use knowledge distillation so that a lightweight fundus-only model inherits performance from the full multimodal system. Self-supervised pretraining and foundation-model backbones will support generalisability and data efficiency. The work leverages harmonised UK and Japanese cohorts totalling more than 200,000 images, enabling rigorous external validation and fairness analysis by sex, refractive status, and ethnicity. Transparency will be promoted through saliency visualisation, concept-based probes, and counterfactual testing. By delivering an accurate, explainable, and deployable tool that works with existing eye-care infrastructure, the project addresses European priorities on healthy ageing and prevention, strengthens EU-Japan collaboration, and lays the groundwork for scalable, equitable detection of silent vascular disease in ageing populations.
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.
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.
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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.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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.
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-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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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) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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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.
WC1E 6BT London
United Kingdom
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.