FIVE QUESTIONS WITH DR MILLICENT STONE ON BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY!
FIVE QUESTIONS WITH DR MILLICENT STONE ON BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY!
BRLSI invited Dr Millicent Stone, one of the leading rheumatologists in the UK and an entrepreneur in residence at the University of Bath, to deliver a talk on 12th November investigating how her role helps to bridge academia to industry. Her talk explores how research turns into commercial products, including real-life examples that will incite interest in how much we benefit from it.
Ahead of her lecture, Dr Stone was asked five questions:
Could you tell us briefly about the role of Entrepreneur in Residence at a University? What is the overall purpose of the EiR?
The role of entrepreneur in residence at a university is a privilege and the aim is to unearth scientific and academic discoveries that can be translated into the real world to make a difference to society. The overall purpose of the EiR is to foster an environment of innovation and translation of ideas from academia to commercial endpoints from bench to bedside, as it were. It bridges all disciplines in the university and is ultimately the gateway to translating impactful research into better outcomes for our world.
The University of Bath has traditionally had strong links with some sectors of industry, such as Engineering. Are there particular areas where you feel such links could be strengthened?
Yes, it is correct the University of Bath has had strong links with some sectors of industry such as engineering and this remains so. I am personally amazed at the strength of scientific discovery that has translated into impactful solutions in the Departments of Health, Life Sciences – to departments of Chemistry, Maths, Physics, and Human Augmentation to name but a few. Who would have guessed that zebra fish might have the clue to solving metabolic diseases such as heart disease! The Institute of Human Augmentation, lead by Professor Damian Coyle, is changing the way we think about neuroscience related disorders and how they can be treated. For example, patients who have severe head injuries and are unable to communicate can now do so with sophisticated AI algorithms embedded in hard ware and under a baseball cap, giving them back the gift of communication to two patients with sports related injuries and complex neurological problems who once thought they would never walk again.
Could you tell us a little about your own experience — what is digital healthcare and how does it benefit patients with back pain?
Yes, I have experience in digital healthcare. I founded a health technology company, iOWNA, in 2019. iOWNA is to solve the problem of misinformation in healthcare, iOWNA is a trusted clinical information platform that gives the right information at the right time to the patient which is shared by their clinician – invoking next generation tools to deliver a seamless patient experience in the arena of chronic disease digital healthcare. Digital healthcare pathways are being widely adopted across healthcare sectors to enable clinicians deliver better clinical outcomes to their patients and generate greater efficiencies in the process. AI has a role to play in operational efficiencies in back-office services such as administration procurement and electronic patient record keeping.
How would you respond to concerns about research in higher education becoming subordinated to commercial interests, as voiced by EP Thompson in his work on The Business University?
I have read the business university paper by EP Thompson, which focuses mainly on top-down institutional integration with commercial in chess. This ultimately influences decision-making, strategic direction and deployment of funds in an institution where the leadership is funded, influenced and part of the commercial entity. Therefore, sight is lost of the higher academic goals – we saw an example of this at Warwick University where students rebelled against this, exposing the culture and leading to change. Ultimately, I believe the processes in the research at University of Bath are robust principles and democratic in their nature. They’re also aspirational in the desire for impact across a number of themes including digital healthcare health and sustainability.
How do you see the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the healthcare sector over the next 5 years?
AI will increasingly, in the future, play a role in enabling technicians to provide better care to patients and ultimately has a role in drug development and therapeutic intervention with smart devices. There will certainly be widespread impact on artificial intelligence in healthcare over the next five years – interestingly, it took over 10 years for Netflix to reach 100 million followers; go to 3 years from WhatsApp to do so; and a mere 2 to 3 months for Chat GPT to reach the same number of followers. Adoption and healthcare will be slower due to the concerns r.e.- patient confidentiality, hurdles in regulation, and a natural latency among clinician leaders. Not all conditions are entrepreneurs. However, there are several areas for AI that will make a difference. Number one: back-office operational functionality – if healthcare organisations do not adopt AI they will be left behind their competitors and peers in the area of helping clinical providers with digitally enabled pathways of care and a third area where larger tech companies such as IBM are already collaborating with researchers to develop molecules due Targus disease areas of challenge our society such as cancer heart disease to name but a few major areas.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
This is an exciting time to be a clinician entrepreneur – it’s a wonderful opportunity to work at the university where entrepreneurship is embraced and encouraged from the top down and bottom up. There have been many exciting spin outs from the university across sectors from engineering to physics to life sciences and health. The challenge now is to set up an overarching structure to facilitate translational health science, this is one area I am personally working on in the university as I believe Bath can be a leader. Not just locally, nationally; but globally. Particularly in an era over education is becoming expensive and unpopular and, in some cases, not fit for purpose. Those universities that are more modern and their approach, such as Bath, will survive and thrive.
To book for Dr Millicent Stone’s talk, book here:
