Researcher Shahnaz Jamil-Copley is improving lives with ground-breaking project | Research News and Media

NUH Consultants have been reaching for the stars with epoch-making research projects, benefiting patients who live with life-threatening heart conditions, lung disease, Alzheimer’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis and those who require kidney transplants.

Since 2019, five doctors at the Trust have received prestigious CARP (Clinical Academic Research Partnership) Awards, with NUH ranking fifth overall in the NIHR league tables as the Trust with the highest number of CARPs.

This means patients who attend the QMC and City Hospital benefit from cutting-edge research and innovation, which involves close partnership with academic leaders and scientists based both locally and nationally.

As the search gets underway for the next CARP candidates who will apply for new MRC funding in 2023, we spoke to Shahnaz Jamil-Copley, one of our previous winners at NUH, about her research. If you are a consultant at NUH who would like to apply for CARP, contact the Grants Team in Research & Innovation for advice: email -  researchgrantapplications@nuh.nhs.uk

Dr Shahnaz Jamil-Copley

A consultant Cardiologist based at City Hospital, Dr Jamil-Copley was a winner of CARP in 2021. Since then, her project using AI (Artificial Intelligence) to develop a ventricular scar model of patients’ hearts has moved forward and brought in new collaborative partners.

The project will eventually have 1,000 or more MRI scans of patients’ hearts, to train AI software to produce a 3D model of a patient’s heart, displaying the complexity of scarring not appreciable to the human eye.

This will be used guide operators to the critical areas inside the heart, which require treatment in Cardiac Electrophysiology laboratories. 

What did your CARP win enable you to do?

Shahnaz Jamil-Copley (SJC):

“The advantages are limitless. For me personally, it provided access to academic mentorship whilst giving me the opportunity to concentrate on leading and developing the research and supervising my first PhD fellow. All of this has allowed the project to progress relatively rapidly over the past year.

“The MRC grant has allowed protected time for my research. This has also allowed me to engage with university activities, enhance my research knowledge and practice and access to limitless resources available for an early career researcher.”

How has your research project progressed?

SJC: “Our aim is to obtain and curate a minimum of 1,000 heart scans.

“We already have 500 scans and these have been used to develop and train the first version of our AI model, which computer scientist Dr Xi Chen at the University of Nottingham has been helping us with…

“These 500 anonymised MRI Scans will be made available to researchers all over the world through the usual protected information governance channels to further advance research and grow collaborative research partnerships. Our collaboration with the University of Leeds is underway, as is our prospective study to recruit the next 500 patients.”

Patients will enjoy tangible benefits as sudden cardiac death accounts for 100,000 deaths a year with ischaemic heart disease being the most common cause. Three quarters of all cases are due to scarring from a previous heart attack, which can lead to heart rhythm disorders. These are the scans are being used by the team to develop the model, initially. Researcher later aims to expand to other causes of scarring in the heart.

When some elements of the project slowed, Dr Jamil-Copley used the opportunity bring in other experts including computer scientists from both Oxford and Imperial College who joined with the Nottingham team.

“We are aiming to perform some pilot testing using the AI models imported into the mapping system used in the clinical laboratory hopefully within the current CARP timeline. This data will be used to support further grant applications.”

Any tips on applying for a CARP?

SJC: “If you believe in your project and are devoted to it, then go for it…I wouldn’t let possible rejection or failure put anyone off. People who invest time, energy and enthusiasm will see it through. Bear in mind, I applied for this in the first round of CARP and I was (then) unsuccessful.”

She added: “It’s an honour to have this opportunity, which cannot be wasted. I’m so proud to say that there are limitless ideas I have been able to squeeze into this CARP grant which stand to benefit patients in multiple ways.”