To take AI development in pathology to the next level, a European consortium combining leading European research centres, hospitals as well as major pharmaceutical industries, is going to develop the world’s biggest repository for sharing of pathology data. The 6-year, €70 million project called BIGPICTURE, will herald a new era in pathology.
Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV) at Linköping University engages heavily in BIGPICTURE. CMIV is responsible for the technical infrastructure in collaboration with the SciLifeLab Bioinformatics platform NBIS and ELIXIR-SE and the Finnish ELIXIR node CSC.
The project partly builds on experiences from the CMIV-hosted AIDA Data Hub. The CMIV efforts include close collaboration with BIGPICTURE partners Region Östergötland and Sectra.
Pathology is the cornerstone of the workup of many diseases such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, of the follow up after transplantation and is also critical for the evaluation of the safety of drugs.
It’s based on the examination of tissue samples (slides) under the microscope. However, despite its pivotal role, it still relies heavily on the qualitative interpretation by a qualified pathologist.
While the microscope symbolizes the profession, the digitalisation of slides in recent years ignited a revolution: not only images can now be shared and accessed from distant locations, they can also be processed by computers.
This opens the door for artificial intelligence (AI) applications to assist the pathologist and help study diseases, find better treatments and contribute to the 3Rs (replace, reduce, and refine animal use in research).
However, the development of robust AI applications requires large amounts of data, which in the case of pathology means a huge collection of digital slides and the medical data necessary for their interpretation.
Sharing these has so far remained challenging due to the data storage capacity required to host a sufficiently large collection and to concerns regarding the confidential character of the medical information.
Digital image of a tissue sample of colon cancer from the BIGPICTURE predecessor AIDA Data Hub. For AI training purposes, tumour cells and other components have been labeled by an expert
To allow the fast development of AI in pathology, the BIGPICTURE project aims to create the first European, ethical and GDPR-compliant (General Data Protection Regulation), quality-controlled platform, in which both large-scale data and AI algorithms will coexist.
The BIGPICTURE platform will be developed in a sustainable and inclusive way by connecting communities of pathologists, researchers, AI developers, patients, and industry parties.
The project is divided into four main aspects that concern the large-scale collection of data. First, an infrastructure (hardware and software) must be created to store, share and process millions of images that can be gigabytes each.
Coordinators: Jeroen van der Laak and Katrien Grünberg (Radboud University Medical Centre, The Netherlands). Project leads: Pierre Moulin (Novartis, Switzerland) and Anna-Lena Frisk (Janssen, Belgium). Notably, Jeroen van der Laak is also Guest Professor at CMIV.
BIGPICTURE is a public-private partnership funded by IMI, with representation from academic institutions, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), public organisations and pharmaceutical companies, together with a large network slide contributing partners.
Academic institutions: Radboud University Medical Center (NL), Linköping University (SE), Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (UK), University Medical Centre Utrecht (NL), Uppsala University (SE, ELIXIR node), Haute Ecole Spécialisé de Suisse Occidentale (CH), Technical University Eindhoven (NL), University of Warwick (UK), Technical University of Munich (DE), Medical University Graz (AT), Institut Pasteur (FR), University of Liege (BE), University of Semmelweis (HU), National Cancer Institute (NL), Region Östergötland (SE), Medical University Vienna (AT), University of Marburg (DE), Helsingin ja Uudenmaan sairaanhoitopiirin kuntayhtymä (FI),
Pharmaceutical companies: Novartis Pharma AG (CH), Janssen Pharmaceutica NV (BE), Bayer AG (DE), Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH (DE), Novo Nordisk A/S (DK), Pfizer (US), Genentech – Roche (US), Sanofi Aventis recherche et Développement (FR), Institut de Recherches Internationales Servier (FR), and UCB Biopharma SRL (BE).
Other public & private organisations: CSC – IT Center for Science Finland (FI, ELIXIR node), Biobanks and biomolecular resources research infrastructure (AT), Azienda Ospedaliera Per L’Emergenza Cannizzaro (IT), Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.(DE), Deutsches Institut für Normung E.V. (DE), European Institute for Innovation through Health Data (BE), European Society of Pathology (BE), Digital pathology association (US), GBG Forschungs Gmbh (DE), ttopstart (NL), Sectra AB (SE), Cytomine SCRLFS (BE), Stichting Lygature (NL), Owkin (FR), Deciphex (IE), MedicalPhit (NL), Timelex (BE),
BIGPICTURE starts on 1st February 2021 and will run for 6 years. However, the platform is meant to last, and the consortium will elaborate sustainability plans to maintain and continue to develop the platform beyond this term.
This project has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 945358. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program and EFPIA. www.imi.europa.eu
This communication reflects the consortium’s view. Neither IMI nor the European Union or EFPIA are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
