About the PiiP

With the advent of whole slide digital scanners, histopathology slides can be digitized into very high-resolution digital images, realizing a new “big data” stream that can potentially rival “omics data” in size and complexity. Just as with the analysis of high-throughput genetic and expression data, the application of sophisticated image analytic tools and data pipelines can render the often passive data of digital pathology (DP) archives into a powerful source for:

• rich quantitative insights into cancer biology and
• companion diagnostic decision support tools for precision medicine

This multi-PI U24 proposal seeks to expand on an existing, freely available pathology image viewer (Sedeen Image Viewer http://pathcore.ca/downloads/) to create a pathology informatics platform (PIIP) for managing, annotating, sharing, and quantitatively analyzing DPI data. This unique project will allow end users with different needs and technical backgrounds to seamlessly

• archive and manage
• share
• visualize

DPI data, acquired from different sites, formats, and platforms. The PIIP will provide a unified user interface for third party algorithms (nuclear segmentation, color normalization, biomarker quantification, radiology-pathology fusion) and will allow for algorithmic evaluation upon data arising from a plurality of source sites. By partnering with professional societies, we envision that the PIIP user base will expand to include the oncology, pathology, radiology, and pharmaceutical communities.