Professor Alastair Denniston
Consultant Ophthalmologist and Honorary Professor, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
Speaker's biography
Professor Alastair Denniston is a Consultant Ophthalmologist specialising in uveitis at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, one of the UK’s largest acute healthcare organisations. His work focuses on use of health data research and the application of digital healthcare (including artificial intelligence) to improve patient care in the ‘real world’. Professor Denniston leads a team committed to ensuring that the best innovation within the broad field of ‘artificial intelligence’ is translated safely, efficiently, equitably and inclusively to patients. This includes improving the design and reporting of clinical trials in this area (CONSORT-AI and SPIRIT-AI), highlighting issues of representativeness including the risk of health data poverty; developing tools to support safe deployment (including validation datasets); and working with regulators and other stake-holder groups to support the best of these innovations right through the implementation pathway to routine patient care and public health. Professor Denniston has a particular interest in the use of routinely collected data and digital innovation to tackle sight-threatening disease. He is the Director of INSIGHT, the UK’s Health Data Research Hub for Eye Health which is focused on eye disease and its application to wider health, including diabetes and dementia (unlocking the power of ‘oculomics’). INSIGHT enables the use of anonymised large-scale data and advanced analytics, including artificial intelligence, to develop new insights in disease detection, diagnosis, treatments and personalised healthcare. Professor Denniston is a Member of the UK Government’s Regulatory Horizons Council, AI Theme Lead for the Centre for Regulatory Science and Innovation (Birmingham, UK), and part of the UK’s Biomedical Research Centre for Ophthalmology (Moorfields Eye Hospital/UCL).