Organ Recital

When it comes to health, it can be hard to know what’s going on inside. Conditions like heart disease, liver disease and diabetes are on the rise around the world, and the search is on to find ways to identify those most at risk and offer interventions to improve their health. One idea is to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to look at the composition of seven different internal organs in search of early indicators of disease. In the largest study of its kind, researchers have used artificial intelligence (AI) to combine more than 38,000 MRI scans like these from participants in the UK Biobank study with genetic data. They’ve discovered that the scans can be used as a way of gauging health and identified 93 genetic variations associated with disease risks. The findings could feed into new tools to help doctors assess people’s health from the inside out.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

Writer

Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image from work by Yi Liu and colleagues
• Research Centre for Optimal Health, School of Life Sciences, University of Westminster, London, UK and Calico Life Sciences LLC, South San Francisco, CA, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, June 2021