Project to drive better health outcomes and Northern Ireland economy with AI

Queen’s and Ulster universities have been successful in a major, UK government funding award to train a new generation of PhD students in the joint area of AI and bio-sciences.

The project, NILab, will be led by Queen’s and funded with £7M (BBSRC-NERC Doctoral Landscape Awards) as part of the UK Government’s Research Innovation (UKRI) programme.

NILab will host 60 PhD studentships over the next 8 years, using AI to drive breakthroughs in health, nutrition, and antimicrobial resistance. The programme aims to produce a cohort of highly skilled graduates, address local skill gaps and boost employability and the local economy.

The scheme will not only bring NI’s two universities together but also a range of academic disciplines at the interface of human health, environmental and animal wellbeing, with an emphasis on ‘One Health’ - the principle that the health of the planet, humans and animals are all intimately connected. 

Principal Investigator on NILab, Professor Hui Wang from the School of EEECS at Queen’s said:

“NILab is built upon a bold vision to harness AI for accelerating bioscience discovery and transforming our understanding of the biological processes underlying health.

“Through training PhD researchers in both AI and biological sciences, we will equip them with crucial skills in AI-powered causality analysis, hypothesis generation, and biomarker discovery to tackle complex challenges in health and biological sciences.

“This training has the potential to push the frontiers of AI-bioscience integration, driving innovations in areas such as drug discovery and repurposing, diagnostics, healthy ageing, and nutrition.”

Principal Investigator at Ulster University for NILab, Professor Helene McNulty, Director of Ulster’s Nutrition Innovation Centre for Food & Health (NICHE) said:

"We are delighted to collaborate with our partners at Queen's on the NILab project, focussed on training a new generation of highly skilled scientists in the use of AI for cutting-edge research to drive innovation and address the urgent challenges of our time in health, nutrition, and antimicrobial resistance.  

"Through this exciting initiative, we will offer the opportunity for interdisciplinary training to PhD level right across Northern Ireland, producing highly skilled graduates who are ideally placed to address local needs, to boost the Northern Ireland economy and to improve the lives of our citizens."

It’s the second major investment from UKRI in quick succession at Queen’s, with another doctoral training programme in cyber security recently awarded to the Centre for Secure Information Technologies, which also sits within the School of EEECS.

Professor Roger Woods, Pro Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, within which EEECS is based, added:

“Increasing the number of PhD studentships Is both a Faculty priority and important for the economy of Northern Ireland.

“NILab provides us with a great opportunity to develop a new cohort of students with skills in AI to enhance discovery in biological sciences in areas of health and wellbeing for humans and animals, antimicrobial resistance, nutrition, and intervention.”

The latest award is part of an overall investment of more than £500 million to support the training of new doctoral students across the UK.

Launching this investment, UK Science and Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, said:

“Backing the next generation of great scientific minds to fulfil their potential is crucial to unlocking the discoveries which improve our lives and which keep our economy growing over the long term through highly skilled jobs.

“This £500m investment will back our vitally important higher education sector while supporting more bright students to pursue their talents and in turn deliver the life-saving drugs and clean energy alternatives of the future, that benefit all of our lives.”

To find out more about the UKRI investment, see Major investment to support the next generation of researchers – UKRI