Kimia Lab and Huron participate in $126 million Industry Consortium for Image Guided Therapy

University of Waterloo's Kimia Lab announced today that it will participate in the $126 million Industry Consortium for Image Guided Therapy (ICIGT) led by the Sunnybrook Research Institute, with investment partnership from the Canadian government.

Image credit: Huron Digital Pathology

The Canadian government, through its Strategic Innovation Fund, will invest up to $49 million to support the ICIGT initiative, which, in addition to Kimia Lab and Huron Digital Pathology, consists of more than 70 partners from industry, academia, government organizations and not-for-profits.

The consortium's mandate is to accelerate the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to deliver better health outcomes, faster diagnoses and safer treatments that minimize side effects and the length of hospital stays.

Kimia and Huron's project within ICIGT aims to develop intelligent algorithms for consensus building and auto-reporting in digital pathology to improve the speed, cost and accuracy of diagnosis. Huron, in technical partnership with the Kimia Lab, recently introduced the world's first image search engine that connects pathologists to the vast knowledge contained in the world's pathology reports.

This is a historic opportunity to initiate a major change in diagnostic pathology. The AI-driven auto-reporting will be the main output of the project enabling diagnostic consensus by accessing large archives of histopathology images and learning from evidently diagnosed cases of the past."

Professor Hamid Tizhoosh, Director of Kimia Lab at University of Waterloo

With this project we will develop and bring to market novel technology that addresses a severe shortage of pathologists in Canada and around the world. Together with our fellow ICIGT members, and with support from the Canadian government, we are further positioning Canada as a world leader in leading-edge medical technologies."

Patrick Myles, CEO of Huron Digital Pathology

Source: Huron Digital Pathology