Dr Petroula Laiou hosts our May Seminar Series
April 9, 2025
Thanks to Dr Petroula Laiou from King's College London,
for delivering our May Seminar Series with her talk,
"Bridging the Gap: Turning Academic Research into Clinical Innovation".
Petroula shared her journey of translating cutting-edge academic research into a mission-driven MedTech company. The spinout is pioneering a novel approach to forecasting and preventing seizures in people with drug-resistant epilepsy - an innovation rooted in years of interdisciplinary work at the intersection of clinical neuroscience, signal processing, and artificial intelligence.
Dr. Laiou took the audience through the full translational pathway: from identifying an unmet clinical need, designing and analysing first-in-human studies, and developing a seizure prediction algorithm, to securing translational funding, navigating the intellectual property landscape, and filing an international patent (PCT/GB2024/052456).
She reflected on key lessons learned during her time in the King’s MedTech Accelerator Programme - where the team won the Best Innovation award - and share insights on building bridges between academia and industry, shaping a commercialization strategy, and transitioning from researcher to entrepreneur.
The talk also highlighted the challenges and rewards of launching a spinout in the healthcare sector and offer practical advice for PhD students and early-career researchers considering the entrepreneurial route.
Seminar Series Event: "Bridging the Gap: Turning Academic Research into Clinical Innovation"
Date and Time:
Wednesday 7 May 2025, 15:00 – 16.00 hrs (BST)
Location: The Lorna Wing Room, SGDP Building, Denmark Hill Campus, London, SE5 8AF
Attendance:
Mandatory for all DRIVE-Health students, therefore please accept the calendar invitation.
Registration: Alumni and wider King's College London research community all welcome - please email
drive-health-cdt@kcl.ac.uk
to let us know if you would like to attend.
Dr. Petroula Laiou is a Research Fellow in Predictive Modelling and Clinical Neuroscience at King’s College London. With a background in mathematics, computational physics, and a PhD in signal analysis, her research bridges computer science, neuroscience, and machine learning. Her work focuses on developing predictive models and digital biomarkers for neurological and psychiatric disorders, including epilepsy and depression.
Dr. Laiou led the development of a novel seizure forecasting algorithm using intracranial EEG and cortical responses to electrical stimulation—research that led to the filing of an international patent (PCT/GB2024/052456). She is the recipient of multiple research grants, including an MRC award as Principal Investigator, and her translational work was recognised by the King’s MedTech Accelerator Programme, where her team won the Best Innovation award.
She has authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications, presented at major international conferences, and actively contributes to interdisciplinary collaborations across academia, hospitals, and industry.
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We are pleased to welcome Dr Jacqueline Matthew - Clinical Research Fellow/Sonographer at King's College London - who will deliver her talk “From Noise to Signal: A Clinical Researcher's Perspective on Translating Advances in Prenatal imaging into Practice" as part of our Seminar Series. Abstract: Over the past decade, machine learning approaches in prenatal imaging has advanced from exploratory academic prototypes to clinically usable, real-time tools, but the path between those two endpoints is rarely straightforward. In this talk, Jacqueline offers a clinical researcher’s perspective on translating biomedical engineering innovations into real-world impact, tracing the journey from the iFIND project’s early breakthroughs in automated fetal imaging to the creation of Fraiya, an AI-driven ultrasound platform now entering clinical deployment. She will unpack the technical, clinical, and regulatory hurdles that shape this trajectory: data acquisition at scale, annotation complexity, model robustness, pipeline optimisation for real-time use, clinical safety engineering, regulatory strategy, and integration with NHS digital ecosystems. Beyond the technical achievements, the session reflects honestly on the innovation “gaps” that researchers and engineers encounter when stepping into entrepreneurship. From productising research outputs, building 'with' clinicians and service users not just 'for' them, securing buy-in, navigating procurement, and proving value in operationally stretched healthcare services. The aim is to provide a pragmatic and motivating roadmap for researchers and innovators seeking to turn biomedical AI research into deployable, sustainable solutions in healthcare. Seminar Series Event : “From Noise to Signal: A Clinical Researcher's Perspective on Translating Advances in Prenatal imaging into Practice. Date and Time: Thursday 22 January 2026, 15:00 – 16.00 hrs (GMT) Location: K39, King's Building, Strand Campus Attendance: Mandatory for all DRIVE-Health students, therefore please accept the calendar invitation. Registration: Alumni and wider King's College London research community all welcome - please email drive-health-cdt@kcl.ac.uk to let us know if you would like to attend. Biography Jacqueline is a clinical academic, sonographer, and MedTech entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in advancing pregnancy care through compassionate, technology-driven solutions. Specialising in ultrasound and fetal MRI, Jacqueline’s work focuses on leveraging cutting-edge imaging technologies to improve screening, diagnosis, and care for pregnant women. With a PhD in advanced 3D ultrasound and fetal MRI, Jacqueline uses machine learning to refine diagnostic pathways, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in prenatal care. As Clinical Lead and Chief Medical Officer at an early-stage health tech startup, she has been at the forefront of developing a real-time AI-powered pregnancy ultrasound platform, with ambitions to transform how scans are performed, enhancing diagnostic accuracy, and empowering healthcare professionals to deliver more informed and compassionate care. Jacqueline’s work has earned her widespread recognition, including being named one of the inaugural winners of the NHS England CAHPO Gold Award for Excellence, which celebrates health professionals who exemplify exceptional contributions to healthcare and the NHS values.
We were thrilled to welcome Dr Abhi Pratap - Global Clinical Development Lead at Boehringer Ingelheim who delivered our October Seminar Series. In his talk “Why Mental Health Needs More Than New Drugs: Using Digital Health to Bring Patient-Centredness to Research and Care" , Abhi shared case examples from emerging clinical studies to show how digital health can bridge the gap between clinical research and patient care in mental health. We will explore digital health solutions that help quantify the real-world experiences of health that matter to people - bringing us closer to understanding what treatments work for whom, why, when, and for how long. Abstract: Innovation in mental health treatment has been strikingly limited compared to other fields of medicine. In the last 15 years, fewer than five truly novel psychiatric drugs have received regulatory approval. This stagnation reflects multifaceted challenges linked to heterogeneity of psychiatric disorders often lacking biological markers grounded in disease biology. Additionally, there is significant reliance on subjective clinician-, rater-, or patient-reported outcomes, which increases variability in trial outcomes and poses challenges in patient selection and endpoint determination. Clinical studies also encounter persistent obstacles, such as high dropout rates, poor generalizability, and endpoints that frequently do not reflect what patients and their families value most. Consequently, there is a critical gap in new treatment development that are patient-centered, enhancing quality of life in real-world settings. Use-case-centered implementation of digital health technologies offers a realistic path to address many of these barriers. Real-world data collected from smart devices can enable the continuous and ecologically valid capture of mood, cognition, behavior, and functioning, augmenting traditional, episodic assessments. This richer measurement framework can enhance sensitivity to change, reduce trial inefficiencies, and ground outcomes more directly in patients lived experience. In addition, the same smart devices can be used to deliver digital adaptations of psychosocial interventions, expanding access to evidence-based care and offering personalized and scalable options for populations that have been historically underserved due to stigma, geography, or cost. Dr. Abhi Pratap is the Global Clinical Development Lead at Boehringer Ingelheim, where he oversees clinical development programs for digital therapeutics aimed at addressing unmet needs in serious mental illnesses. Before joining Boehringer, he worked at Biogen, managing one of the largest decentralised studies on cognitive trajectories in real-world settings in collaboration with Apple. With over 15 years of experience in translational biomedical research, Dr. Pratap has led numerous health research studies that promote partnerships between academia and industry. His primary focus is on using digital health technologies to gain a deeper understanding of the real-life experiences of individuals with neurological and psychiatric disorders. His cross-sector research aims to accelerate patient-centered clinical development in central nervous system (CNS) disorders. Most recently, he led a successful pivotal Phase III trial targeting experiential negative symptoms of schizophrenia (NCT05838625) using a digital therapeutic. This study is among the first confirmatory trials to show improvement in negative symptoms to date. Additionally, Dr. Pratap serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Washington in Seattle and Boston University, and he is a visiting research fellow at King’s College London.
