King's College London

The summer school brought together students and academics from Peking University Health Science Centre (PKUHSC), Keio University, Karolinska Institutet and King's to learn from one another's expertise, build international networks and explore opportunities for future collaboration.

Throughout the week, participants presented their research to peers from across the four institutions and attended talks exploring how emerging technologies and computational approaches are advancing healthcare and biomedical research.

Speakers included Dr Enrico Parisini, Research Fellow in Machine Learning at the Comprehensive Cancer Centre at King's, who shared ways clinicians can work with AI systems to improve patient care. Drawing on insights from the PharosAI project, an initiative co-led by King's, his presentation highlighted how AI is supporting new approaches to cancer diagnosis, drug discovery and treatment.

Students also heard from Thomas Booth, Professor of Neuroradiology in the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at King's, who spoke about emerging AI-assisted robotic technologies for stroke treatment. Earlier this year, he helped establish the first international consensus on the design, testing and evaluation of these systems, setting standards for their safe development and future use in healthcare.

Alongside attending talks, participants took part in practical workshops on academic writing, measuring research impact and identifying funding opportunities. They also toured the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering, gaining insight into how medical technologies are developed and translated into products and treatments that benefit patients.

Dr Linglong Qian first joined the programme shortly before graduating from King's and described it as "the best graduation gift I could have received."

Returning to the programme this year as an early-career researcher, Dr Qian noted that the summer school provided an opportunity to build lasting friendships and opened up opportunities for research collaboration.

Since 2015, King's has participated in the programme, which rotates between the partner institutions each year. In 2025, a cohort of King's students travelled to PKUHSC, where they toured research facilities and attended lectures spanning health data science, medical informatics, biomedical engineering and imaging sciences.

King's longstanding partnership with PKUHSC includes the King's-PKUHSC Joint Institute for Medical Research, established in 2015 to advance research in areas including mental health, cardiovascular disease and cancer. The two universities also support collaboration through workshops and seed funding schemes, and in 2024 renewed their Memorandum of Agreement, securing continued support for joint health sciences projects.

King's also collaborates with Karolinska Institutet on a jointly delivered short course in clinical cancer epidemiology and maintains strong links with Keio University through a range of student exchange opportunities, including in medicine.