The 12 teams of competitors were selected from over 470 applications to take part in the event, which was co-hosted by Google, venture capital firm AlbionVC, Adeline Arts and Science, Bupa and HSBC Innovation Banking. Teams presented their solutions at an evening showcase. 

Ilija Ilievski, Poorva Jain and Karolina Kunnapuu (representing the Koohy and Antanaviciute groups in the MRC WIMM) won the £5000 prize for their solution to the AlbionVC ‘Pathway Breakdown’ challenge. The challenge was to design a way to help clinical teams to spot problems arising during care handoffs - when patient information, authority, and responsibility are transferred from one healthcare provider or team to another, which can disrupt the patient journey.

Using Google’s MedGemma AI model, the team developed a tool that tracks patient-care workflows, identifies delays as they happen and predicts where bottlenecks are likely to occur, allowing care coordinators to intervene earlier.

Professor Hashem Koohy commented: 

‘Research in both the Koohy and Antanaviciute groups sits at the interface of immunology, medicine and data science. Our teams develop and apply computational and AI-based approaches to better understand the mechanisms underlying disease development and progression, and ultimately to help inform new therapeutic strategies. 

'Although the specific clinical challenge in the hackathon was different from our day-to-day research, it required the same combination of biological and medical understanding, data science and problem-solving skills. Equipped with this multidisciplinary expertise and mindset, members of our two groups were excited to take on the challenge, and their win was a testament to their great teamwork.’