Helping Pathologists Use New Technology to Identify and Classify Cancer-Related Cells Research
Enhanced functionality of software promises a giant boost in tissue analysis
Surgical pathologists may have an exciting new tool for identifying and classifying cancer-related cells. Medical researchers at Duke University are demonstrating that “active learning” software developed for finding and recognizing undersea mines can help pathologists identify and classify cancer-related cells.
The Duke research team embedded the active learning software into an existing software toolkit, called FARSIGHT, which is a collection of software modules. FARSIGHT was designed to rapidly analyze images of human tissue collected from laser-scanning microscopes, an article in University of Houston Engineering News explained. It can be scripted to accomplish a variety of automated image analysis tasks, from analyzing brain tissue to studying the effectiveness of medications.
“The results are spectacular,” said Lawrence Carin, Ph.D., Professor, Electrical Engineering Department at Duke, stated in an Office of Naval Research press release. “This could be a game-changer for medical research.”
