The Unicaja Foundation and the Biomedical Research Institute of Málaga and Nanomedicine Platform IBIMA Plataforma BIONAND granted today this award, worth 15,000 euros
The selected project has been promoted by the Department of Computer Science and Programming Languages of the UMA and the Clinical Unit of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery of the Virgen de la Victoria University Hospital
The Unicaja Foundation and the Biomedical Research Institute of Málaga and Nanomedicine Platform IBIMA Plataforma BIONAND granted today the III Unicaja Award for Innovation in Biomedicine and Health to a project on improving the clinical diagnosis of coronary heart disease through artificial intelligence.
The award ceremony was attended by the head of Solidarity and Research of the Unicaja Foundation, Ana Cabrera; the scientific director of IBIMA Plataforma BIONAND, Francisco J. Tinahones, and the main researchers of the winning project, Esteban José Palomo Ferrer and Ana Isabel Molina Ramos.
This third edition has awarded the project ‘Intelligent System to Aid Clinical Diagnosis of Non-Obstructive Coronary Artery Disease in Coronary Angiography’, which aims to develop an intelligent system to aid clinical diagnosis of non-obstructive coronary artery disease by analyzing coronary angiographies based on artificial intelligence. The objective of this proposal is to improve the diagnostic procedure of this disease, which is one of the most important causes of death in today’s society.
The selected project is led by the IBIMA Plataforma BIONAND researchers Esteban José Palomo Ferrer, full professor in the Department of Computer Science and Programming Languages at the University of Málaga, and Ana Isabel Molina Ramos, researcher in the “Río Hortega” program and cardiologist at the Clinical Unit of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery of the Virgen de la Victoria University Hospital. It is the result of the multidisciplinary collaboration of the Computational Intelligence and Image Analysis research group, coordinated by Dr. Ezequiel López Rubio, and the ‘Investigación Cardiovascular para la Salud’ (Cardiovascular Research for Health) group of IBIMA Plataforma BIONAND and the Centro de Investigación en Red de Enfermedades Cardiovasculares (Network-based Research Center for Cardiovascular Diseases) also known as CIBERCV, directed by Dr. Manuel Jiménez Navarro.
Awarded with 15,000 euros, the team of researchers will implement the winning project over the next 18 months by developing a system capable of analyzing patients’ coronary angiographies using an algorithm to characterize them and predict the presence of cardiovascular events during monitoring. Moreover, the system will try to determine whether there are differences between the prognosis associated with subgroups of patients at special risk, such as diabetics, elderly patients and, in particular, women.
The tool is intended to serve as a fundamental diagnostic support resource for patients, since it will enable the identification and automated recording of the results of procedures, with the consequent reduction of the workload for hemodynamics professionals and waiting times for patients. Furthermore, it will facilitate decision making, especially in complex cases of patients, favoring team decision making. The philosophy is to make the system available for everyone.
With this initiative, the Unicaja Foundation continues its commitment to research and progress in Biomedicine as one of its priority lines of action.
An award for innovation to improve the quality of life of citizens
Organized by the Unicaja Foundation and the Biomedical Research Institute of Málaga and Nanomedicine Platform (IBIMA Plataforma BIONAND), the award is granted to the best innovation project on prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases or improvement of healthcare activity.
In the second edition, the winning project was called ‘Telemedicine in the care of complex-multi pathological chronic children and those requiring pediatric palliative care’, led by Aurora Madrid, a doctor in the Home Hospitalization Unit of the Children’s Hospital of Málaga. In the first edition, the award was granted to the research entitled ‘Development of a microarray with beta-lactam-protein and beta-lactam-nanostructure conjugates for the diagnosis of antibiotic allergy’ of the Allergology Clinical Management Unit of the Regional University Hospital of Málaga and the Allergology group of IBIMA, whose main researcher was María Isabel Montañez.