Cleveland Clinic, IBM and the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Hartree Centre in the UK are teaming up to advance healthcare and biomedical science through advanced computing technologies.

“This international collaboration brings together a multidisciplinary team of scientists, clinical researchers and physicians from across industry, government and healthcare,” said Lara Jehi, MD, MHCDS, Chief Research Information Officer at Cleveland Clinic.

“The research teams will leverage high performance and quantum computing to advance life sciences, with the goal of improving healthcare and accelerating new treatments for patients around the world. Cleveland Clinic London will be a central link between innovative clinical care in the UK and Cleveland Clinic’s global footprint.”

Key role

“This partnership will play an important role in advancing research into the use of cutting-edge computation in healthcare and life sciences,” said Alessandro Curioni, IBM Fellow and Director, IBM Research Zurich.

“We look forward to working with researchers from Cleveland Clinic London and the Hartree Centre to explore promising areas of discovery across quantum computing, AI and beyond.”

Two clinical research projects have been launched to kick-start the new collaboration. They will be led by Dr Jehi, an epilepsy researcher, and Charles Knowles, PhD, Chief Academic Officer at Cleveland Clinic London, working closely with teams from IBM and Hartree Centre. The projects will be supported by the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation, a collaboration between IBM and Hartree Centre.

The first project, led by Dr Knowles and supported by the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation, will apply advanced AI tools to objectively quantify the impact of care on patients at Cleveland Clinic London.

Researchers from IBM, Hartree Centre and Cleveland Clinic will examine how common hospital procedures affect a patient's overall health and quality of life, with the goal of enhancing patient outcomes.

Clinical and advanced imaging data

Initially, the team will explore clinical and advanced imaging data provided by Cleveland Clinic London BioResource, a repository which provides patients with the opportunity to consent to enhanced longitudinal data collection and analysis.

The researchers plan to use this pilot study to develop larger AI models that can integrate multiple types of data for analysis across different diseases, ultimately aiming to improve understanding and patient care.

Cleveland Clinic London’s BioResource is unique for a private healthcare provider in the UK in gaining research approval from the UK’s National Research Ethics Service (Health Research Authority).

The BioResource is one of 28 studies, including several NHS portfolio trials now open at Cleveland Clinic London with over 600 patients recruited so far. This year, Cleveland Clinic London will expand its clinical research studies and the number of patients enrolled in the BioResource.

The second project, led by Dr Jehi in collaboration with IBM and the Hartree Centre, will apply quantum computing to analyse large-scale data sets to identify molecular features in the body that better predict surgical response in patients with epilepsy. The objective is to uncover novel biomarkers that can be used to personalise treatment plans and improve patient outcomes.

Epilepsy is the most common chronic noncommunicable brain disease, affecting more than 60 million patients worldwide. For approximately one-third of patients, anti-seizure medications are unable to control the disease and brain surgery offers the best chance for a cure.

Cutting-edge biomedical research challenges

Dr Jehi’s project is an example of the cutting-edge biomedical research challenges now tackled at Cleveland Clinic through the organisation’s strategic partnership with IBM - Discovery Accelerator - which combines Cleveland Clinic’s renowned expertise in healthcare and biomedical research with IBM’s next-generation technologies to accelerate research.

Through the partnership, IBM last year deployed IBM Quantum System One at Cleveland Clinic, the first quantum computer in the world dedicated to healthcare research.

Dr Jehi was a featured speaker at the third annual Economist Impact Commercialising Quantum Global 2024 conference in London on June 6. Her project on leveraging quantum for the discovery of biomarkers of epilepsy brain surgery outcomes was highlighted as an example of how quantum computing can be used to advance precision medicine. 

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