Using the power of artificial intelligence to detect disease

A large international collaboration, led by A/Prof Xiu Ying Wang and Prof Manuel Graeber of the University of Sydney, has developed an innovative, advanced artificial intelligence (AI) application, PathoFusion, that could be used for the examination of routine tissue samples in order to identify indications of cancer. The research melds contributions from computer scientists, neuropathologists, neuosurgeons, medical oncologists and medical imaging scientists. ANSTO's Prof Richard Banati, a Professor of Medical Radiation Sciences/Medical Imaging, who studies the brain's innate immune system using advanced medical imaging techniques, is a co-author on the paper published in the journal, Cancers. "The idea behind PathoFusion was to create a novel advanced deep learning model to recognize malignant features and immune response markers, independent of human intervention, and map them simultaneously in a digital image," explained Banati. Scientists specifically designed a bifocal deep learning framework which is analogous to how a microscopist works in histopathology image analysis.