EU to supply millions of euros in funding for projects at the University and
University Hospital Bonn

Not one but two researchers at the University of Bonn and the University
Hospital Bonn are to receive much-sought-after Consolidator Grants. Awarded
by the European Research Council (ERC), they provide millions of euros in
funding for outstanding research projects. Professor Philipp Vollmuth is
developing an AI foundation model that is expected to set new benchmarks for
the use of AI in radiology, while Privatdozent Dr. med. Michael
Sommerauer—who recently swapped the University of Cologne for Bonn—is
researching the early detection of Parkinson’s disease.

“Receiving these prestigious grants marks a fantastic success for the
Faculty of Medicine and the University Hospital Bonn,” says Professor Bernd
Weber, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Acting CEO of the University
Hospital Bonn. Something else that makes the achievement special, he
reveals, is the fact that both his colleagues do clinical work alongside
their research, thus demonstrating the feasibility of combining the two.
“This is precisely what we are aiming to do in funding our Advanced
Clinician Scientists, which enabled us to secure Michael Sommerauer’s
services as part of the ACCENT program funded by the Federal Ministry of
Education and Research (BMBF),” Weber explains. “In terms of their content,
both projects are also a perfect fit for our research focus areas.
Congratulations to both researchers.”

Foundation models: a key technology

Radiological imaging helps to diagnose diseases and monitor their course.
While more and more of these tests are being done, time pressure in clinical
treatment is also increasing. Professor Philipp Vollmuth, Director of the
Division for Computational Radiology & Clinical AI (CCIBonn.ai) at the
Neuroradiology Clinic and Co-Director of the Center for Medical Data
Usability and Translation (ZMDT), wants to use artificial intelligence (AI)
to tackle this challenge. He has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant
worth €2.5 million over the next five years for his “AI-Next” project.

“With AI-Next, we’re striking off in a pioneering new direction,” Vollmuth
says. “We’re developing an AI foundation model that’s designed to set new
benchmarks for using AI in radiology and, just like an experienced
physician, to develop an in-depth ‘understanding’ from a vast amount of
image data.” The plan is for the model to learn to identify structures and
patterns by itself in an extensive and varied pool of data comprising
several million radiological images. “We’re focusing on brain imaging
initially, because it’s a highly complex and data-intensive field,” the
researcher explains. However, he points out, the methodology used—which is
similar to language models like ChatGPT—could be applied to any branch of
radiology.

Professor Vollmuth, a member of the Life & Health Transdisciplinary Research
Area at the University of Bonn, is keen to explore every ounce of potential
that these models offer, from improving image quality and using automation
to identify and quantify critical findings—e.g. in the case of a stroke or
brain hemorrhage—through to enabling more precise diagnosis of chronic
conditions such as multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s. AI is also set to
help improve predictions of disease progression in cancer patients and
automate radiological reports. Within AI-Next, the researcher is building on
his existing involvement in research initiatives looking at foundation
models such as the Human Radiome Project (THRP) and is working closely with
various partners at home and abroad, including the German Center for
Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the German Cancer Research Center
(DKFZ).

Dr. Philipp Vollmuth has held an Else Kröner CS Professorship for Artificial
Intelligence in Medical Imaging at the University Hospital Bonn since April.
He previously worked at Heidelberg University Hospital, from where he also
obtained his Habilitation. He has been a visiting professor at the
University of California, San Francisco and the University of Ulsan College
of Medicine in Seoul and completed an MBA at IE Business School in Madrid.
He has also won numerous prizes endowed with funding to support his career.

Spotting Parkinson’s early

Parkinson’s disease usually escapes detection until a person is already
showing signs of significant motor disorders and has lost a great many nerve
cells. “By this point, it’s too late to pinpoint any treatments that could
slow or stop the disease’s progression,” says Privatdozent Dr. med.
Professor Michael Sommerauer. “This is why it’s so important to spot the
condition earlier, i.e. before the patient develops symptoms that make it
harder for them to do everyday things.” The “Re-Start PD” project is
designed to help identify Parkinson’s early, gain a better understanding of
its early stages and thus come up with new treatments. It is to receive
nearly €2.5 million in funding from the ERC over the next five years.

Michael Sommerauer has come to Bonn on an Advanced Clinician Scientist
scholarship from the University’s Faculty of Medicine. At the Clinic for
Parkinson’s Disease, Sleep and Movement Disorders in the University Hospital
Bonn’s Center for Neurology, he is in charge of the sleep laboratory, where
his work focuses on sleep disorders as a warning sign for Parkinson’s. “REM
sleep behavior disorder is a precursor to Parkinson’s in certain people,”
Sommerauer says. To this end, he is also offering dedicated office hours for
patients and, together with fellow physicians from the Netherlands and
Austria, has secured over €1 million in EU funding to prevent Parkinson’s
through increased movement and exercise. “So the ERC grant fits in really
well with what I’ve been doing up to now,” the researcher adds. He is aiming
to create an early-warning system for Parkinson’s complete with tablet app
for large sections of the population, on which he is collaborating closely with
colleagues from Bonn, Munich, Marburg, Oxford and Boston.

Michael Sommerauer spent the past six years working at the Neurology Clinic
at the University Hospital Cologne, where he wrote his Habilitation thesis
on sleep-wake disorders in cases of Parkinson’s disease and applied for the
ERC Consolidator Grant that he has now been awarded in Bonn. After obtaining
his medical degree from RWTH Aachen University, he went on to work at Aarhus
University Hospital and the University Hospital Zurich.

ERC Consolidator Grants

The ERC awards its Consolidator Grants annually to fund excellent
established researchers whose work demonstrates a high level of scientific
quality on a par with their international peers. The grant is designed to
bolster independent research teams that are already in place and consolidate
their scientific work. See
https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant/consolidator-grant for more information.