The Care Innovation Hub builds on a decades-long history between UCSF and GE HealthCare, bringing research focus areas under one framework. It integrates the research and clinical expertise of UCSF in critical care areas such as brain health, neurodegenerative disease and oncology, with GE HealthCare’s deep knowledge in research and product development.

“Our collaboration with GE HealthCare brings a practical focus on addressing well-defined clinical objectives,” said Sharmila Majumdar, PhD, Research Vice Chair in the UCSF Department of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging. “Together, we’re accelerating innovation in ways that will improve access to care and outcomes across healthcare settings.”

The Care Innovation Hub centers on three focus areas designed to address impactful clinical goals and answer critical questions in the field of medical imaging and treatment:

• Building an imaging service line of the future
• Advancing solutions for neurodegenerative disease
• Driving Accessible Precision Oncology

“We’re honored to collaborate with UCSF on this important work, which has the potential to significantly improve patient outcomes and address life-threatening diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and prostate cancer worldwide,” said Erin Angel, PhD, GE HealthCare Global Vice President, Research and Scientific Affairs. “By combining our strengths, we’re taking steps toward solutions that meet real clinical needs. Together, we’re building something we hope will make a meaningful difference for patients and the future of healthcare.”

Building an imaging service line of the future

UCSF and GE HealthCare aim to dramatically improve medical imaging services by developing more automated imaging methods, such as patient-specific magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques that could adapt to patient needs in real time. This aims to increase efficiency and accessibility to create more consistent, high quality, and personalized care. Projects within this focus area concentrate on advancing quantitative imaging for cardiac and musculoskeletal disease and developing methods to enable high-quality remote scanning.

This focus area aims to answer the question: Can we build a fully automated imaging service line that delivers exceptional care, minimizes inefficiencies and adapts to patients in real time?

Advancing solutions for brain health and neurodegenerative disease

UCSF and GE HealthCare aim to expand understanding of brain functions using advanced imaging. The team aims to explore the links between white matter injury, vascular disease, and Alzheimer’s disease, and identify ways to predict treatment efficacy for brain health interventions.

This focus area aims to answer the question: Can we leverage advanced imaging to evaluate aging and biomarkers to better understand neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer’s disease?

Driving Accessible Precision Oncology

UCSF and GE HealthCare hope to develop quantitative imaging methods to monitor patient response to radiopharmaceutical therapies (RPTs) and create protocols to expand access to these emerging treatments. The team aims to standardize processes for new approaches, such as visualization of alpha-emitting radiopharmaceuticals. Through this work, the team aims to establish quantitative methods to assess how a patient is responding to treatment, and build, evaluate, and translate novel diagnostic innovations to patient care.

This focus area aims to answer the question: Can we create new methods to assess how a patient is responding to RPT and expand access to theranostics to clinicians and patients in their own communities?

The collaboration research activities will take place at University of California, San Francisco facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.