June 6, 2024 -- Cleveland and London: Cleveland Clinic, IBM and the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Hartree Centre in the UK have announced an innovative collaboration aimed at advancing healthcare and biomedical science through advanced computing technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing.

Two clinical research projects have been launched to kick-start the new collaboration. They will be led by Dr. Jehi, an epilepsy researcher, and Charles Knowles, Ph.D., Chief Academic Officer at Cleveland Clinic London, working closely with teams from IBM and Hartree Centre. The projects will be supported by the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation, a collaboration between IBM and Hartree Centre.

The first project, led by Dr. Knowles and supported by the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation, will apply advanced AI tools to objectively quantify the impact of care on patients at Cleveland Clinic London. Researchers from IBM, Hartree Centre and Cleveland Clinic will examine how common hospital procedures affect a patient's overall health and quality of life, with the goal of enhancing patient outcomes.

The second project, led by Dr. Jehi in collaboration with IBM and the Hartree Centre, will apply quantum computing to analyze large-scale data sets to identify molecular features in the body that better predict surgical response in patients with epilepsy. The objective is to uncover novel biomarkers that can be used to personalize treatment plans and improve patient outcomes.

Epilepsy is the most common chronic noncommunicable brain disease, affecting more than 60 million patients worldwide. For approximately one-third of patients, anti-seizure medications are unable to control the disease and brain surgery offers the best chance for a cure.

Dr. Jehi’s project is an example of the cutting-edge biomedical research challenges now tackled at Cleveland Clinic through the organization’s strategic partnership with IBM - Discovery Accelerator - which combines Cleveland Clinic’s renowned expertise in healthcare and biomedical research with IBM’s next-generation technologies to accelerate research. Through the partnership, IBM last year deployed IBM Quantum System One at Cleveland Clinic, the first quantum computer in the world dedicated to healthcare research.