Bridging the Gap in Mental Health: Dr. Ling Huang Awarded Dame Julia Higgins Fund for AI-Driven Depression Research

LONDON - Dr. Ling Huang, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Imperial College London’s Institute of Clinical Sciences, has been awarded the prestigious Dame Julia Higgins Postdoc Collaborative Research Fund. The grant will support a pioneering new project aimed at unravelling the complex biological and neurological mechanisms underlying depression.

Dr. Huang is co-leading the initiative alongside Dr. Zi Wang from Imperial’s Department of Bioengineering. Their funded project is titled: “Cross-Scale Modelling of Depression: Integrating Human iPSC-derived Neural Cultures and Brain Imaging.”

A Cross-Disciplinary Approach to Mental Health

Depression is a highly complex, multifaceted condition that operates across multiple scales of the human body - from cellular misfires in the brain to large-scale structural and functional changes visible on brain scans. Traditionally, these two scales (the microscopic and the macroscopic) have been studied in isolation.

The project led by Dr. Huang and Dr. Wang aims to bridge this gap. By combining Dr. Wang’s expertise in bioengineering with Dr. Huang’s advanced knowledge of artificial intelligence, uncertainty quantification, and medical data analysis, the team plans to build cross-scale models that link the behaviour of human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived neural cultures directly to macroscopic brain imaging data.

The Role of Trustworthy AI

Integrating such vastly different types of biological and imaging data is a massive computational challenge. Dr. Huang’s expertise in trustworthy AI and multimodal information fusion will be critical to the project’s success. By applying advanced deep learning models capable of quantifying uncertainty, the team aims to ensure that their cross-scale models are not only highly accurate but also reliable and interpretable for clinical use.

About the Dame Julia Higgins Fund

The Dame Julia Higgins Postdoc Collaborative Research Fund is designed specifically to encourage independent, cross-faculty research collaborations among postdoctoral researchers at Imperial College London. By bringing together the Institute of Clinical Sciences and the Department of Bioengineering, Dr. Huang and Dr. Wang’s project perfectly embodies the fund’s mission to foster innovative, interdisciplinary science.

This grant marks a significant milestone in Dr. Huang’s ongoing mission to apply trustworthy AI solutions to some of the most pressing challenges in healthcare and medical imaging.