PhD project title and outline, including interdisciplinary dimension:
Developing mobile technology for home monitoring of diabetes in pregnancy

The SPaRK PhD candidate will join a multidisciplinary team of researchers who are in the process of developing a healthcare mobile phone technology called “GEMS miCARE”. GEMS miCARE will empower pregnant women with diabetes to manage their condition better with home monitoring and remote support, reducing the number of clinical visits to the times when they are required on a personalised and flexible basis. As part of this mobile technology, we are also developing novel point-of-care devices based on kidney function, glucose control and cardiovascular biomarkers suitable for home monitoring. Therefore this interdisciplinary project will lead to the development of skills in software and hardware development, data analytics and processing, and predictive algorithm improvement for risk stratification. We anticipate that by January 2019, our product will enter a clinical trial and the student will be part of the team involved in clinical data management. Our non-academic partners, Northern Ireland Connected Health Innovation Centre (CHIC) and CIGA Healthcare, will support the candidate in developing their technical and commercial expertise which can be applied to the mobile health technology and interface with novel point-of care device based biomarkers. The candidate will gain knowledge in product development from research through to market by engaging with CHIC and CIGA Healthcare. Furthermore, we have international collaboration with the Republic of Ireland, Dr John O’Donoghue, a lecturer with a background in computer science and eHealth, whose role will be as a third and external supervisor. Dr McClements, Dr Watson and Dr O’Donoghue are currently in the process of setting up a spin-out company from Queen’s University Belfast, which will enable commercialisation of the GEMS miCARE mobile technology. The candidate will have an opportunity to gain experience on commercialisation of the products developed through academic research.

Primary supervisor: 
Dr Lana McClements (Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences)

Secondary supervisors: 
Dr Chris Watson (Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences)
Dr John O’Donoghue (eHealth, University College Cork) 

External Partner/Organisation: 
CHIC