Intelligence and Care: Technology, Health, and Human Futures

As the global population ages, our healthcare systems are struggling to keep up. To bridge this gap, we are developing rehabilitation robots that learn just like humans do: by observing.

Traditionally, robots required complex programming to perform tasks. New approach uses Vision-based Learning, allowing a robot to watch a video of a therapist and understand the exercise to replicate it.

A tumour is a very complex structure with many components working together enabling development, growth and survival in the human body - very much comparable to all the different instruments playing in an orchestra and factors involved in ensuring a successful musical performance. My research focusses on developing cellular models that adequately represent this complexity of breast cancer tumours in the human body. This involves culturing the cells in a three-dimensional setting and including also other cell types such as stroma cells, immune cells or endothelial cells, which are found in blood vessels. I am particularly interested in the inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase (iNOS), a protein that is often overly present in certain types of breast cancer, most commonly in Triple Negative Breast Cancer. Using my 3D models, I can investigate how the increased iNOS levels can change proliferation, drug response and migration in this subtype of breast cancer.

My PhD looks at whether AI treats women’s sport fairly. I use football video to test if algorithms miss key head impacts in female athletes, and whether better data can build fairer tools for concussion detection and safer sport.