MICCAI 2021 Daily – Wednesday

In hospitals and research labs around the world, microscopy is one of the most widely used imaging methods for assessing pathologies and forming diagnoses . With images becoming larger and larger and impossible to analyze by eye, biologists have tended to count cells under a microscope from a sample of very few regions, then extrapolated to generalize results to the whole slide. However, using Witsee ’s web platform, whole slide images can be analyzed in just a few minutes using deep learning . A unique element of the platform is that it gives users the ability to generate their own deep learning models. Pre-computed models do exist for some common pathologies, oncology for example, but many pathologies have had no possibility of automatic analysis before. Witsee’s target market includes anyone that uses physical or virtual slides, such as pharma and public or private research labs. Its mid-term aim is to target the clinical market. Clinical pathologists spend a great deal of time looking at images under the microscope and trying to find biomarkers, quantities, and quantifications. This is lost time that they could be spending doing other things. Witsee wants to reduce this time to almost nothing. “ In medical imaging, there are never enough images, and expertly annotated images needed for deep learning are even rarer, ” Cedric explains. “ Data augmentation is a key point of the platform that allows users to have powerful models with, let’s say, five times less data, thus multiplying the time efficiency by five. After the model is created, we provide very fast quantification using parallel computing, GPUs, and deep learning of course. ” The platform can be provided for different set-ups. It is a cloud solution , so customers always have the latest version of the software and do not have to 32 DAILY MICCAI Wednesday Startup Village Cedric Clouchoux is Chief Scientific Officer and VP Product at Witsee . Witsee provides a platform for pathologists and biologists to automatically analyze very high- resolution virtual slides. The company is participating and presenting at the Startup Village this year. Cedric speaks to us about what they do.