Research Group

Digital Health

Professor Age Chapman examines some proteomics data analytics

Our researchers are examining and developing information and communication technologies to help address the health problems and challenges faced by patients.

About

With a rising population across the globe, many societies are struggling to meet healthcare demand.   Digital health care interventions are key to tackling this issue and help to enhance the efficiency, delivery and security of services to patients, and supporting care in the community. 

But with so many new digital technologies available and the immediate access to massive data sets how can we harness this information to ensure it makes a real difference to society?  And how do we overcome the challenges of privacy and personal data protection? 

Southampton scientists across medicine and electronics and computer science are combining machine learning,  genome sequencing and other computational methods to develop new digital health interventions to help healthcare professionals and patients to manage illness and promote health and wellbeing.   This includes both hardware and software solutions including using Internet of Things smart devices, wearable devices and monitoring sensors.    

Our teams are also using digital health technologies to analyse already available data sets to establish trends of behaviour and decision patterns with the aim of predicting future healthcare needs as well as examining the role data protection plays in this ever-expanding research field. 

People, projects and publications

People

Professor Mary Barker PhD, C Psychol

Prof of Psychology & Behavioural Science

Research interests

  • Mary Barker is Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Science. She has a joint appointment in both the Faculty of Medicine and the School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Southampton UK.  Mary runs a programme of work in both the UK and in low-income countries aiming to engage young people in improving their sense of agency, well-being and mental health, to benefit their health in general but their diets and physical activity habits more specifically. Her team’s approach is participatory and combines social activism focused on engaging young people in the climate change and health agenda and testing methods of one-to-one support and digital resources including smartphone games. Much of this work takes place as part of her NIHR Programme Grant for Applied Research EACH-B (Engaging Adolescents in Changing Behaviour). She partners in this activity with the TALENT network of colleagues with interests in adolescent health and well-being based in institutions in low-and-middle-income countries. Her team also ran a five-country, longitudinal qualitative study with young people throughout the pandemic exploring their experience, mental health, well-being and resilience, data from which supported UK local and national government COVID messaging to young people. She is adjunct professor at the University of Agder, Norway, and has honorary appointments at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, and University College London.
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Professor Matt Ryan

Professor

Research interests

  • Democracy
  • Social Research Methods
  • Web Science

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Dr Matthew Blunt PhD

Associate Professor

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Professor Matthew Garner PhD

Prof Psychology &Affective Neuroscience

Research interests

  • Neuropsychological mechanisms and treatment targets in anxiety disorders. 
  • Psychopharmacology/experimental medicine (acute pharmacological challenge).
  • Psychophysiology (e.g. interoception, autonomic markers of emotion processing),

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Professor Matthew Loxham

Professorial Fellow-Research
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Dr Matthew Rose-Zerilli BSc (Hons), PhD

Lecturer in Integrative Cancer Biology

Research interests

  • Cancer prevention
  • Innate immunity
  • Tumour microenvironment

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Professor Matthew Terry

Professor of Molecular Plant Biology

Research interests

  • Chloroplast development and retrograde signalling to the nucleus
  • Light regulation of wheat growth and development
  • Improving algal photosynthesis

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Dr Matthias Baud

Associate Professor

Research interests

  • Chemical Biology
  • Medicinal Chemistry
  • Protein Sciences

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Professor Max Crispin DPhil, FRSB, FRSC, FHEA

Director of Inst for Life Sciences

Research interests

  • Viral Glycobiology
  • Therapeutic Antibodies

Accepting applications from PhD students

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Dr Melissa Andrews

Associate Professor

Research interests

  • spinal cord injury
  • gene therapy
  • axonal regeneration

Accepting applications from PhD students

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True interdisciplinary research, in which collaborators share the challenges and strengths of different domains is more than just applying one domain’s techniques to another area’s problems. Interdisciplinary research opens up new and exciting research opportunities in both domains by changing the shape of the problem and highlighting why existing approaches are not fit for use.
Professor of Computer Science

Related research institutes, centres and groups

Related research institutes, centres and groups

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