PhD Scholarship in Deep Learning for Medical Video Analysis and Understanding

AI has the potential to revolutionise healthcare, providing tools for fast and reliable analysis and interpretation of medical data. For instance, many deep learning models for medical image analysis have been recently developed and deployed in the clinic, assisting doctors with diagnosing and monitoring various diseases. One application consists in the real-time detection of colorectal polyps during colonoscopy, a crucial examination for the screening and prevention of colorectal cancer (currently the fourth most diagnosed and the third most fatal cancer worldwide). Unfortunately, state-of-the-art approaches heavily rely on the availability of a large corpus of image frames annotated by clinical experts through an expensive and time-consuming process. On the other hand, recent self-supervised methods could alleviate this limitation by leveraging large amounts of un-annotated datasets. These techniques remain however largely unexplored in the field of medical video analysis.

The School of Science and Technology at City, University of London has partnered with Cosmo Intelligent Medical Devices (world-leading company in the design of AI-based medical devices for endoscopy) to offer a Doctoral Scholarship to investigate novel approaches for endoscopy video analysis, focussing on self-supervised deep learning methods and on their power to harness un-annotated data for downstream tasks.

The PhD candidate will work in an exciting international environment in the heart of the City of London. They will join the CitAI Research Centre (with academic staff with extensive expertise in AI for healthcare) and be able to leverage Hyperion, City’s High-Performance Computer. They will gain access to part of Cosmo IMD’s proprietary library of partially-annotated endoscopy videos (of unprecedented size and quality) and be supported by their expertise in industrial deployment of cutting-edge, FDA-approved AI tools for medical video analysis (e.g., their polyp detection system GI Genius™, named to the prestigious FORTUNE 2022 “Change the World” list and currently used in thousands of hospitals worldwide). Accordingly, the research outputs of this Scholarship will have the chance of impacting the real clinical practice.

What is offered:

The Scholarship will include:

• A competitive annual bursary for 3 years (£21,000/year)
• Full tuition fees for UK and Overseas Students
• The opportunity to earn up to around £4,300/year through a non-compulsory teaching assistantship
• Over £4000 to participate to conferences and training

Eligibility:

The studentships will be awarded based on outstanding academic achievement and the potential to produce cutting-edge research. Prospective applicants must:

• Hold a good honours degree (no less than a second-class honours degree or an equivalent qualification) in an appropriate subject
• Have good knowledge of modern machine learning techniques and be able to code using Python (with relevant libraries, e.g., PyTorch, Tensorflow)
• Applicants whose mother tongue is not English must meet any one or a combination of the following:
  • A minimum IELTS average score of 6.5; with a minimum of 6.0 in each of the four components
  • The award of a Masters’ degree, the teaching of which was in English from an English-Speaking Country

Applicants are welcome to apply directly using the link below. For questions regarding the application process, please contact pgr.sst.enquire@city.ac.uk. For questions regarding the project, please contact the academic supervisor (Dr Giacomo Tarroni, giacomo.tarroni@city.ac.uk).

How to apply:

To apply online, click on this link.

Closing date: 31st May 2024 or until the position has been filled.

The successful candidate will formally start his/her doctorate in April, July or October 2024.

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