Too often, says Prof. Stephen Friend of Oxford University, patients coping with mental illness feel isolated and neglected, and that applies to their families as well.

A new project is exploring ways to follow mood transitions and their triggers, using health apps and wearables that are co-designed by patients themselves. It’s a collaboration between the support group Bipolar UK, Oxford University’s Department of Psychiatry, and the non-profit company 4YouandMe. The project uses a smart ring on the finger to gather detailed data on each person’s condition.

Earlier in his career, at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Boston and at MIT, Dr Stephen Friend led the team that cloned the first human cancer susceptibility gene. He subsequently assisted with digital health developments at Harvard, the University of Washington and Apple, and is now a Visiting Professor of Connected Medicine at Oxford, living as often as he can around his family in Kirkwall.