LMP's digital pathology and artificial intelligence initiative takes shape

Patients will benefit as pathology enters a new era

"Progress in science depends on new techniques, new discoveries and new ideas, probably in that order." -- Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner

Sydney Brenner knew and understood tools, the tools of molecular biology in its early days. He saw firsthand and up close what tools enabled a scientist to do in the laboratory. Indeed, Brenner pioneered several laboratory techniques and methods in a career that spanned 70 years.

When Brenner began his career in biomedical research after World War II, there were no computers in his laboratory. The few in existence wouldn't have fit into a biomedical laboratory. They weighed tons.

Today, the computer is a full partner in the research enterprise. Discoveries and new ideas depend on it. More and more, disease diagnosis and treatment do, too.

LMP's digital pathology and artificial intelligence initiative was launched in 2024. As LMP associate professor Kevin Turner observed in a proposal to advance the department's whole slide imaging capabilities, "The adoption of digital pathology in the United States is accelerating and we are seeing it being increasingly explored by all types of pathology departments, from academic to private practice." As compelling as the advantages of digital pathology or DP are, "they pale in comparison to the biggest advantage, that being artificial intelligence (AI) based diagnostic tools."

We are introducing a six-part series of stories about the department's DP & AI initiative featuring principal investigator descriptions of three funded projects plus three faculty commentaries about how they see the world of DP and AI evolving. I have written a concluding essay in which I attempt to put today's rapidly converging fields of molecular, cellular, and tissue pathology and computation in historical perspective and suggest why we are just at the beginning of an auspicious era.

Here are the stories in our DP & AI series:

"Khalifa imagines the AI agent as a 'good fellow' trainee at the pathologist’s side" (Mahmoud Khalifa, Vice Chair, Anatomic Pathology)
"Turner foresees a bright future as pathology goes digital" (Kevin Turner, Anatomic Pathology, DP/AI project PI)
"Adeyi envisions 'amazing technologies' advancing into the pathologist’s arena" (Oyedele Adeyi, former LMP professor, liver and transplant pathologist)
"Giubellino’s team deploys AI in a hunt for tumor-killing cell biomarkers" (Alessio Giubellino, dermatopathologist, DP/AI project PI)
"Zhu’s project details how deep learning is coming for the cancer cell" (Shijia Zhu, computational biologist, DP/AI project PI)
"Informatics spurs pathology’s digital transformation" (Michelle Stoffel, director, clinical informatics)
"We are just at the beginning: The tapestry of the human body is coming into sharp relief" (William Hoffman, LMP communications)