Dr Robert Free

Robert's research focuses on the use of advanced data science approaches, including software engineering, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to develop and translate models and technologies into data-driven tools for healthcare professionals. His background in molecular biology/genetics and bioinformatics and his work at the clinical interface give him a unique perspective

He is particularly interested in the use and integration of complex data from different disciplines for this purpose including molecular biology/genetics and bioinformatics; clinical data of different types (test results, coded observations, imaging) and mobile data data collection.

Current research projects include:

• building self-learning health-based digital twins for A&E patients admitted to hospital with a respiratory problem such as pneumonia, asthma or other lung disease
• responsible packaging approaches for secure AI-based clinical decision support tool implementation incorporating data validation and monitoring
• the development of AI/ML-based models to predict community acquired pneumonia outcome from complex multi-faceted hospital admission data
• generic approaches for embedding logical and AI/ML models into data-driven workflows to provide trusted/interpretable clinical decision support to healthcare workers

Free, R.C. et al. (2023) ‘A data-driven framework for clinical decision support applied to pneumonia management’, Frontiers in Digital Health, 5. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2023.1237146.

Lozano-Rojas, D., Free, R. C., McEwan, A. A. & Woltmann, G. A Systematic Literature Review of Machine Learning Applications for Community-Acquired Pneumonia. in Proceedings of 2021 International Conference on Medical Imaging and Computer-Aided Diagnosis (MICAD 2021) (eds. Su, R., Zhang, Y.-D. & Liu, H.) vol. 784 292–301 (Springer Singapore, 2022).

Jong, V. M. T. de, Rousset, R. Z., Antonio-Villa, N. E., Buenen, A. G., Calster, B. V., Bello-Chavolla, O. Y., Brunskill, N. J., Curcin, V., Damen, J. A. A., Fermín-Martínez, C. A., Fernández-Chirino, L., Ferrari, D., Free, R. C., Gupta, R. K., Haldar, P., Hedberg, P., Korang, S. K., Kurstjens, S., Kusters, R., Major, R. W., Maxwell, L., Nair, R., Naucler, P., Nguyen, T.-L., Noursadeghi, M., Rosa, R., Soares, F., Takada, T., Royen, F. S. van, Smeden, M. van, Wynants, L., Modrák, M., Collaboration,  the C., Asselbergs, F. W., Linschoten, M., Consortium, C.-C., Moons, K. G. M. & Debray, T. P. A. Clinical prediction models for mortality in patients with covid-19: external validation and individual participant data meta-analysis. BMJ 378, e069881 (2022).

Free, R. C., Richardson, M., Pillay, C., Hawkes, K., Skeemer, J., Broughton, R., Haldar, P. & Woltmann, G. Specialist pneumonia intervention nurse service improves pneumonia care and outcome. BMJ Open Respiratory Research 8, e000863 (2021).

Free, R. C. & Ali, A. Headfake: a Python-based tool for generating fake data. (2021) doi:10.5281/ZENODO.4890383.

Zhao, B., Bryant, L., Cordell, R., Wilde, M., Salman, D., Ruszkiewicz, D., Ibrahim, W., Singapuri, A., Coats, T., Gaillard, E., Beardsmore, C., Suzuki, T., Ng, L., Greening, N., Thomas, P., Monks, P., Brightling, C., Siddiqui, S. & Free, R. C. LabPipe: an extensible bioinformatics toolkit to manage experimental data and metadata. BMC Bioinformatics 21, (2020).

Wilde, M. J., Zhao, B., Cordell, R. L., Ibrahim, W., Singapuri, A., Greening, N. J., Brightling, C. E., Siddiqui, S., Monks, P. S. & Free, R. C. Automating and extending comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography data processing by interfacing open-source and commercial software. Analytical Chemistry 92, 13953–13960 (2020).

Free, R. C. Simpler handling of clinical concepts in R with clinconcept. arXiv:2002.11431 [cs, stat] (2020).

John, C., Reeve, N. F, Free, R. C., Williams, A. T., Ntalla, I., Farmaki, A.-E., Bethea, J., Barton, L. M., Shrine, N., Batini, C., Packer, R., Terry, S., Hargadon, B., Wang, Q., Melbourne, C. A., Adams, E. L., Bee, C. E., Harrington, K., Miola, J., Brunskill, N. J., Brightling, C. E., Barwell, J., Wallace, S. E., Hsu, R., Shepherd, D. J., Hollox, E. J., Wain, L. V., Tobin, M. D. Cohort Profile: Extended Cohort for E-Health, Environment and DNA (EXCEED). Int J Epidemiol 48, 678–679j (2019)

Beck, T., Hastings, R. K., Gollapudi, S., Free, R. C. & Brookes, A. J. GWAS Central: a comprehensive resource for the comparison and interrogation of genome-wide association studies. Eur J Hum Genet 22, 949–952 (2014).

Haldar, P., Thuraisingam, H., Patel, H., Pereira, N., Free, R. C., Entwisle, J., Wiselka, M., Hoskyns,E. W., Monk, P., Barer, M. R. & Woltmann, G. Single-step QuantiFERON screening of adult contacts: A prospective cohort study of tuberculosis risk. Thorax 68, 240–246 (2013).

Beck, T., Free, R. C., Thorisson, G. A. & Brookes, A. J. Semantically enabling a genome-wide association study database. Journal of Biomedical Semantics 3, 9 (2012).

I currently supervise several interdisciplinary PhD students across multiple research areas of interest.

Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in research or development projects in these areas:

• Data-driven AI health data analytics
• Clinical decision support software infrastructure including federated models
• Complex data integration challenges

• https://www.ukri.org/news/13-million-for-22-ai-for-health-research-projects/

• https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-software-blocks-incorporate-artificial-intelligence.html

• Director of Informatics for National Institute for Health and Social care research Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (https://leicesterbrc.nihr.ac.uk)
• Board member of Leicester Institute for Precision Health (https://le.ac.uk/research/institutes/precision-health)
• Associate Director of Health Data Research UK Midlands (https://www.hdrmidlands.org.uk/)