Google's DeepMind and the NHS team up on eye health

DeepMind will use machine learning to try to detect, and prevent, eye disease at earlier stages

Google has always had a strong commitment to using technology to improve healthcare. That has included a smart contact lens for monitoring diabetes, and Baseline Study, which involves the collecting of genetic and molecular information from a group of people. It's latest project: using artiificial intelligence to improve eye health.

DeepMind, the artificial intelligence company that Google bought in 2014, announced on Tuesday that it has partnered with the UK's National Health Service, in which Moorfields Eye Hospital will use DeepMind's technology to help detect eye diseases at an earlier stage.

Specifically it will be targeting diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which, together, affect more than 625,000 people in the UK, and over 100 million people around the world.

"At the moment, eye care professionals use digital scans of the fundus (the back of the eye) and scans called optical coherence tomography (OCT) to diagnose and determine the correct treatment for these serious eye conditions," DeepMind explained in a blog post.

"These scans are highly complex and take a long time for eye health professionals to analyse, which can have an impact on how quickly they can meet patients to discuss diagnosis and treatment. And to date, traditional computer analysis tools have been unable to explore them fully."

Instead, DeepMind will use its AI technology to analyse one million eye scans, shared by Moorefields, to see if these diseases can be detected earlier by using machine learning. If they can be detected, and prevented, DeepMind can greatly reduce the number of patients who lose their sight. Then similar technology can likely be applied to other diseases as well.

"Our research with DeepMind has the potential to revolutionise the way professionals carry out eye tests and could lead to earlier detection and treatment of common eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration," Professor Sir Peng Tee Khaw, Director of the National Institute for Health Research Specialist Biomedical Research Centre in Ophthalmology at Moorfields Eye Hospital, said in a statement. 

"With sight loss predicted to double by the year 2050 it is vital we explore the use of cutting-edge technology to prevent eye disease."

This is DeepMind's second collaborating with the NHS; earlier this year they collaborated on an app called Streams, which the company uses data to detect early warnings of kidney disease. The collection of that data turned out to be highly controversial, so, this time around, DeepMind and the NHS are being more cognizant of making sure the data remains anonymous.

Trying to reassure anyone who's worried about the ethics of allowing DeepMind getting a hold of the eye scans, DeepMind says will not know who the scans belong to since they were "collected over time through routine care."

"This means it’s not possible to identify any individual patients from the scans. And they’re also historic scans, meaning that while the results of our research may be used to improve future care, they won’t affect the care any patient receives today," DeepMind says, also noting that it doesn't own the data and has to adhere to "clear rules covering what we can do with it."

Google's health initiatives

Health has been a big topic of concern for Google for a while now, with many of its so-called "moonshot projects" focusing on health and well-being. 

In addition to the smart contact lens, the Baseline Study, it also bought Lift Labs, the creators of an electronic device that improves the quality of life for those with Parkinson’s and essential tremor. 

The company's biggest, and most ambitious, health-related project, though, is Calico, company that was founded by Google in 2013, and whose was to take on the aging process. The focus was said to be on health and well-being, particularly when it comes to aging and diseases associated with that process.

Calico teamed up with biopharmaceutical company AbbVie to create a $1.5 billion research facility dedicated to developing and testing anti-aging related drugs.

(Image source: milauskas-eye.com)