Invited Speaker: John Vardakis, Co-Founder & CSO at Science Card

May 23, 2024

We are thrilled to invite John Vardakis to speak at our EPSRC DRIVE-Health CDT's summer symposium next month. John joins us from Science Card to talk about "Exploring the Frontier: The future of GenAI Investments and Collaborations in Industry and Academia."

John Vardakis, PhD, has a diverse work experience, primarily in the field of scientific research. John is currently serving as the Head of Science Card Investment Group at Science Card, where they are involved in innovative banking. Previously, they worked as a Research Scientist at the University of Glasgow, where they focused on simulation-driven microelectromechanical systems design. John also worked as a Research Scientist at INSERM, investigating tumor mechanics and vascular fractality quantification. At the Center for Computational Imaging & Simulation Technologies in Biomedicine (CISTIB), they conducted research in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular biomechanics. Their work at UCL involved computational modeling of dementia and image-guided neurosurgery for epilepsy. John completed their DPhil in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oxford, where their research focused on fluid transport in the brain. John also gained experience in the fields of vascular diagnosis and market research at the University of Heidelberg and P2i, respectively. Additionally, they worked as a Mechanical Engineer at Enactus and completed a placement at King's College London's Centre for Robotics Research.


John Vardakis, PhD has a strong educational background in engineering and innovation. John obtained their Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) degree in Mechanical Engineering from King's College London in the years 2005 to 2008. John then pursued further education at the University of Oxford, where they completed the Centre for Doctoral Training in Healthcare Innovation from 2009 to 2010. Following this, they earned a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Biomedical/Medical Engineering from the University of Oxford from 2010 to 2014. During their time at Oxford, they also pursued a diploma in Strategy & Innovation (Science Innovation Plus programme) from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, from 2011 to 2012.


In addition to their academic degrees, John Vardakis has obtained additional certifications. In December 2010, they received a Mathwork Training Certificate for completing the "Deploying MATLAB Based Applications - .NET Edition" course. John also obtained another Mathwork Training Certificate in December 2010 for completing the "MATLAB Programming Techniques" course.


Registration is required, please email drivecdt@kcl.ac.uk for further event details.


Our annual Symposium is a one-day face-to-face event for all DRIVE-Health students, academic supervisors, stakeholders and partners.  Our aim is to discuss translating scientific and technological innovations in AI and data science, from research to clinical practice and commercial enterprise.


The symposium will feature keynote talks, panel discussions, and poster presentations showcasing cutting-edge research and successful case studies. We will also celebrate our coming together with networking drinks at the end of the symposium.


The EPSRC DRIVE-Health Centre for Doctoral Training is training the next generation of PhD health data scientists to become the innovation leaders of tomorrow. Our students work within an active NHS environment, and develop new models of data-driven care, whilst leveraging significant recent investment and infrastructure in Health Data Research within the UK.


By registering for this event, you give consent to provide your name, e-mail address and registration information with King's College London for the purposes of managing the EPSRC DRIVE-Health CDT's Summer Symposium. Your personal data will be managed by those organisations and by Eventbrite according to their published privacy policies.



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September 24, 2026
We are delighted to welcome Srinivasan Vairavan , Director of Digital Health and AI Biomarkers at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine R&D and Visiting Lecturer at King's College London , to deliver his seminar, "Precision Psychiatry through Digital Phenotyping: Lessons Learned from Three Longitudinal Studies in major depressive disorder" , as part of the EPSRC DRIVE-Health Seminar Series. Abstract: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) remains diagnosed and monitored almost entirely through episodic, subjective self-report, limiting both clinical care and trial sensitivity. This lecture presents evidence that passively collected digital signals can objectively characterize core MDD symptom domains and track an individual's mental state continuously between clinic visits. Drawing on more than 1,000 patients across three major longitudinal cohorts — RADAR-CNS, ORBIT (NCT02489305), and CANBIND — we describe methods that translate subtle behavioral and physiological data into clinically interpretable biomarkers. Paralinguistic analysis of speech is used to quantify psychomotor retardation, while fractal signatures derived from actigraphy index depression severity and impending relapse. Building on these markers, we present a personalized, N-of-1 anomaly detection framework that fuses passive digital streams with intermittent self-report to flag elevated relapse risk at the individual level. Results support the clinical validity of this approach. Digital measures, including speech intensity, showed significant associations with clinical outcomes. The relapse prediction model achieved a balanced accuracy exceeding 71%, with a median detection lead time of two to three weeks prior to clinical onset and a low false alarm rate — a profile compatible with real-world deployment. The lecture will also address principal sources of measurement variability, including seasonal effects, and the emerging relationship between cognitive performance and digital biomarkers. Together, these findings indicate a shift from episodic subjective assessment toward objective, unobtrusive, and continuous monitoring in mental healthcare — with near-term implications for patient selection and endpoint sensitivity in clinical trials, and longer-term potential for personalized diagnosis and treatment in MDD. Seminar Series Event : "Precision Psychiatry through Digital Phenotyping: Lessons Learned from Three Longitudinal Studies in major depressive disorder" Date and Time: Thursday 15 October 2026, 13:30 – 14:30 (BST) Location: The River Room, King’s Building, 2nd Floor, Room KIN 227, Strand Campus Attendance: Mandatory for all DRIVE-Health students; a calendar invitation has already been sent. Registration: Alumni and the wider King's College London research community are welcome - no booking required. Biography Srinivasan Vairavan , PhD, is Director of Digital Health and AI Biomarkers within Neuroscience Data Science and Digital Health at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine R&D, and a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Biostatistics and Health Informatics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. He has over 15 years of experience building and scaling AI, machine learning and advanced analytics capabilities across pharma and healthcare, with prior roles at Proteus Digital Health and Philips Research. His work translates large-scale clinical, digital health, molecular and EHR data into regulatory-grade endpoints, including engagement through FDA Type C meetings and EMA Qualification Advice, and co-development of the industry-wide V3+ framework. He leads and contributes to major international consortia including RADAR-CNS, RADAR-AD and AMP-SCZ. He holds patents in relapse prediction in major depressive disorder and speech-based detection of cognitive decline, sits on the editorial board of BMC Digital Health, and serves on the DRIVE-Health advisory board.
July 28, 2026
We are looking forward to welcoming Professor Honghan Wu, Professor of Health Informatics and AI at the University of Glasgow, who will deliver his talk “Large language model and Radiology: how to facilitate human and AI collaboration? " as part of our Seminar Series. Abstract: In this upcoming talk, Professor Honghan Wu explores the essential shift from viewing AI as a potential replacement for radiologists to recognizing it as a critical collaborative partner. Moving beyond basic tasks like detection and triage, the presentation highlights how AI can address practical clinical "pain points," such as reducing automated protocoling time by up to 60% and decreasing the time spent communicating with providers and patients by 30%. Professor Wu will present recent research on using knowledge-retrieval and Large Language Models for clinical report error correction and generation. The session concludes with an examination of the real-world deployment lifecycle, discussing the challenges of monitoring the over 700 FDA-cleared radiology AI devices currently in practice Seminar Series Event : “Large language model and Radiology: how to facilitate human and AI collaboration?" Date and Time: Thursday 25 November 2026, 15:00 – 16.00 hrs (GMT) Location: Venue to be confirmed. Attendance: Mandatory for all DRIVE-Health students; a calendar invitation has already been sent. 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 Honghan Wu is a Professor of Health Informatics and AI, based in the School of Health and Wellbeing of the University of Glasgow, where he leads the research theme of data science and AI. Prof Wu is a co-director of Health Data Research Scotland. He also is an honorary professor at Hong Kong University, an honorary associate professor at Institute of Health Informatics, UCL, and a former Turing Fellow of The Alan Turing Institute, UK's national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. Prof Wu holds a PhD in Computing Science. His current research focuses on machine learning, natural language processing, knowledge graph and their applications in medicine.