Monthly theme - October 2026 - Health and Life Sciences
October's theme in The Data Lab Community is Health & Life Sciences!
Data and AI are creating new opportunities to improve healthcare, accelerate drug discovery and deepen our understanding of human health. But turning these opportunities into meaningful progress takes more than technology alone, from building effective data infrastructure to integrating AI into clinical practice and supporting large-scale health research.
This month, we're looking at how data and AI are being applied to some of the challenges facing health and life sciences today. Our programme explores what it takes to make healthcare AI work in clinical settings, how analytics can support more effective drug discovery, how geospatial data can transform public health information, and how large-scale research can build a better understanding of young people's health and wellbeing.
Events 🎟️
As part of our activities throughout the month, we're running a whole host of events and webinars related to the theme. Make sure to register for the ones you'd like to attend via the links below!
- What It Takes to Get AI Into Clinical Use - 8 October 2026 17:30 - 19:30 BST [Edinburgh + Online]
Healthcare is seeing rapid growth in AI trials and pilot programmes, but proving that a technology works is only the beginning. Moving from a successful pilot to something that can be safely, effectively and routinely used in clinical practice brings a different set of challenges.
Our panel will explore what can help promising AI projects progress beyond the pilot stage, what can hold them back, and what needs to change to support responsible adoption across healthcare and the NHS.
- Building an Analytics Platform for AI-Driven Drug Discovery - 14 October 2026 12:30 - 13:30 BST [Online]
How do you build an analytics function at a cutting-edge AI drug discovery company?
Drawing on seven years doing exactly that, this webinar covers the unique challenges of drug discovery analytics, how to scale it across dozens of projects at once, how to make sure humans and AI are judging success by the same criteria, how analytics can speed up the discovery cycle itself, and how to measure AI's actual impact on results.
- Mapping Malaria with Geospatial Data Engineering - 20 October 2026 17:30 - 19:30 BST [Edinburgh + Online]
The ability of the NHS to provide travellers with up-to-date, reliable information on malaria was historically limited by a time-consuming mapping process. Maps were created using a combination of GIS (geographic information systems) and manual drawing, with each country mapped individually. Completing the process could take the best part of a year.
Andrew Gasiorowski will walk us through the creation of a global dashboard for Malaria mapping, taking a data driven approach to turn a process that took months into one that now takes minutes.
- Adolescent Health Study: Understanding the development, health and wellbeing of young people across the UK - 27 October 2026 13:00 - 13:50 GMT [Online]
The Adolescent Health Study is a major UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funded initiative to improve the health and wellbeing of young people across the UK.
Aiming to recruit at least 100,000 volunteers from ages 8-18 from across the UK, this longitudinal study will follow the volunteer’s health and wellbeing for at least 10 years.
This session will be an opportunity for the study team to introduce their work, share how they’re trying to respond to the challenge, as well as the approach they are taking to build their research data ecosystem.
Upcoming themes 📆
Here's a reminder of what we have coming up for the rest of 2026!
- October - Health and Life Sciences 🦠
- November - Data Visualisation 📈
If you are interested in contributing to any of our monthly themes, let us know by completing this short form, and we'll get back to you with more info!
We'll help promote events that align with our themes to our 8000+ members, offering an excellent opportunity to reach new audiences and amplify your activities. If you would like some more info on how you can get involved, whether that is by organising an event or sharing other relevant content, get in touch at [email protected], and we'd be happy to chat!