At least a dozen sessions at the 2025 Executive War College explored artificial intelligence use in clinical labs
Although not explicitly stated, it was clear at the 2025 Executive War College on Diagnostics, Clinical Laboratory, and Pathology Management conference that artificial intelligence must be a path forward for labs to control costs in an unfavorable economic environment.
Even though the technology is largely unproven in clinical lab settings, the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in labs is enough reason for laboratory leaders to explore it further.
“AI is allowing us to drive our business,” said Sam Terese, CEO and president at Alverno Laboratories, during a general session at the Executive War College. “It is really resonating that we need to use AI in the future.”
Clinical laboratory leaders should constantly ask themselves whether there is an AI solution to a problem, advised Sam Terese (above), CEO and president at Alverno Laboratories. Terese spoke at the 2025 Executive War College. (Photo copyright: LabX.)
‘Not a Lot of Trust’ in AI from Patients
Terese acknowledged that patients do not yet feel comfortable with the technology. “When you throw AI and healthcare together, from the public’s perspective, there’s not a lot of trust,” he said.
That said, Alverno is committed to increased use of AI in clinical labs in 2025, including for:
Terese urged laboratory owners and executives to not underestimate how quickly AI adoption could spread within the clinical lab industry. Digital pathology took half a century to evolve into its current state, but “AI took five years. The timeline is moving rapidly,” he observed.
Don’t Move Blindly Forward with AI, Experts Warn
At least a dozen sessions at this week’s Executive War College addressed an aspect of AI in labs.
Lab leaders must advise their staff to use AI with systems or processes that can tolerate mistakes because AI will get things wrong, Cecchini added.
“I treat AI like an eager intern where you have to check everything it does,” he said.
Presenter Ankit Ranjan, PhD, founder of AI company Sample Healthcare, agreed with that sentiment. He suggested that clinical laboratories should consider AI as a copilot until its algorithms can prove to lab staff that conclusions or predictions are accurate. The long game for AI in labs is not to cut a few staff from the budget but instead act as a revenue driver.
“Inserting AI into end-to-end processes is what really addresses problems,” Ranjan said.
Watch for much more coverage about the state of AI in clinical laboratories in upcoming issues of The Dark Report. If you’re not a subscriber, it’s a great time to take a free trial of our business intelligence briefings.
Last week involved a full slate of pathology meetings and medical laboratory site visits on both islands of New Zealand during Dark Daily’s visit to this Pacific nation
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That’s one insight to be gleaned from a week’s worth of meetings with pathologists, clinical laboratory professionals, and health system administrators in the cities of Auckland on the North Island and Christchurch on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island. Your Dark Daily Editor, Robert Michel, had the opportunity to speak at several conferences and workshops, along with visits to medical laboratories.
A note of explanation about nomenclature will be helpful to Dark Daily’s international readers. In Australia and New Zealand, “pathology laboratory” is the common term for the medical laboratories that typically test blood, urine, saliva, and similar specimens. (In the United States and Canada, “clinical laboratory” is used interchangeably with medical laboratory.) “Histopathology” (or anatomic pathology) is the common term for labs that handle tissue specimens in New Zealand and Australia. (In North America, anatomic pathology, or surgical pathology laboratory is used more frequently than histopathology.) (more…)
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Remember IBM’s Watson? It’s been five years since Watson beat human contestants on Jeopardy. Since then, IBM has hoped Watson could be used in healthcare. To that end, some oncologists are exploring the use of Watson in cancer care. This could have implications for anatomic pathologists if oncologists developed a way to use Watson in the diagnosing cancers and identifying appropriate therapies for those cancers.
In 2011, IBM’s Watson supercomputer defeated human contestants for a charity prize during the television show Jeopardy. Just days later, Dark Daily reported on IBM’s goal for Watson to play a major role in helping physicians diagnose and treat disease. Since then, IBM has been exploring ways to commercialize Watson’s cognitive computing platform through partnerships with some of the healthcare industry’s biggest brands. (more…)
Understanding the unknown functions of these genes may lead to the creation of new diagnostic tests for clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups
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Recently the research team at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) and Synthetic Genomics, Inc. (SGI) published their latest findings. Among the things they learned is that science still does not understand the functions of about a third of the genes required for their synthetic cells to function. (more…)
COPD and gestational diabetes research are the subject of two new projects aimed at intercepting diseases prior to onset and identifying preventive treatments
Can new insights into the human genome make it possible to diagnose disease much earlier—even before symptoms can be observed? Multiple research programs are targeting this possibility. One example is being conducted by Johnson & Johnson (J&J). The American multinational medical-device company wants to leverage recent developments in genetics, data analysis, and its worldwide partnerships, in an attempt to answer two profound questions:
• Can the earliest signals of disease be identified; and
• What treatments will assist researchers who are trying to prevent diseases?
To pursue these two goals, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is expanding its existing research project into disease prediction and prevention, which currently involves 24 global partners, according to an Associated Press March story. (more…)
