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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s UNITY Project Democratizes Brain Imaging Research Around the Globe

King’s College London and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation UNITY Project use Flywheel as a medical image sharing hub for international research into health outcomes and child brain development.

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When it comes to conducting large-scale medical imaging studies, researchers need to ensure data collection and analysis are as equitable across all collection sites as possible. Only then can they get reliable, actionable results that can affect real change. Led by King’s College London and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ultra-Low Neuroimaging In The Young project has enabled research teams around the globe to collect pediatric MRIs using low-field scalable imaging tools that can be operated by most people to investigate the effects of issues such as malnutrition and birth complications on the brain. They’re collecting and comparing pediatric MRIs between high-income countries (HICs) and low-middle-income countries (LMICs), where these issues are more prevalent. Read to learn how Flywheel provides an infrastructure to harmonize data so the researchers can work toward optimizing children’s health around the globe and ultimately saving lives.