Dr Daniel Lewis (NIHR Clinical Lecturer in the Division of Cancer Sciences at the University of Manchester and part of our brain tumour theme), has been awarded just over £41,500 from Cancer Research Horizons (the commercialisation and translational arm of Cancer Research UK) through the Early Validation Fund. 

This funding awarded to Daniel and study co-investigators Dr Kaloh Li, Dr Xiaoping Zhu, Professor Alan Jackson and Mr David Coope will support the first steps in the transformation of the DCE-MRI analysis software – currently used in research settings – into a cloud-based clinical decision support tool. The new platform could help clinicians globally not only predict vestibular schwannoma (VS) growth but also analyse imaging data from patients with other brain tumours. 

The project will be delivered in partnership with Dr Suzanne Embury (Reader in the Department of Computer Science) and Imago Software, a University of Manchester initiative. During a week-long design workshop in early November, clinicians including neuroradiologists, neurosurgeons, imaging experts and skull base specialists from NCA will collaborate with developers to co-design and test the tool’s interface. 

“This is an exciting project that seeks to take the findings from our early exploratory imaging studies all the way through to larger translational studies and now on to the development of a clinically applicable analysis tool that could become commercially available in the future”
— Dr Daniel Lewis 

 Plans are already underway in collaboration with other UK research groups to start testing this software and expand its use across specialist centres worldwide – demonstrating how academic innovation can lead to real-world clinical impact. 

This grant continues research from earlier studies. Daniel’s paper, published earlier this year, is available here: Emerging strategies for the prediction of behaviour, growth, and treatment response in vestibular schwannoma   

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