Current Digital Pathology Trends: Post-conference Recap from USCAP 2024 (Unscripted)

This week, the digital pathology community gathered at the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP) annual meeting in Baltimore. I had the incredible opportunity to attend, spurred by an invitation from Hamamatsu, known for their revolutionary digital pathology scanners like the FDA-cleared S360 and the new S20 model.

• Innovative Partnerships and Technology: My agenda was filled with meetings that explored the latest in digital pathology. Key highlights include the launch of Hamamatsu’s S20 scanner, Techcyte’s technological advancements, and Proscia’s FDA-approved AP Dx software. The collaboration between Hamamatsu and Agilent, utilizing Proscia’s platform, underscored the collaborative spirit driving the field forward.
• Community Engagement and Recognition: The warmth and recognition from the community were overwhelming. It reinforced the value of our work and the podcast, blending technical insights with personal stories that underline the human aspect of pathology.
• Advancing Research and Education: A standout moment was learning about the World Tumor Registry initiative from Andrey Bychkov and Alyaksandr Nikitski. This initiative marks a significant step in making valuable pathological data more accessible for research and education, starting with a comprehensive collection of thyroid case slides.

The USCAP meeting was a testament to the enthusiasm and innovation within digital pathology. Stay tuned for a detailed video blog covering the conference, highlighting the S20, and more, watch it on YouTube!

1. Hamamatsu: Known for their FDA-cleared scanner, S360, and the newly launched S20 model.
2. Techcyte: Discussed their dynamic evolution and upcoming projects and their partnership with BD for cervical cytology AI based evaluation.
3. Corista: Learned about their software advancements, including voice recognition for improving pathologist workflows.
4. Smart In Media: Discussed their new camera for microscopes and grossing rooms.
5. Proscia: Celebrated their FDA clearance for the AP Dx software.
6. Epredia: Showcased their pathology equipment, including scanners like the P1000 with water immersion.
7. Aiforia: Highlighted their AI for image analysis, especially the GLP-compliant module for toxicologic pathology.
8. Indica Labs: Featured their pathologist cockpit setup and discussed their comprehensive software solutions.
9. PathPresenter: Met with the CEO, Patrick Myles, and discussed the company’s rapid growth and services.
10. Pramana: Discussed their archival scanning services and their new benchtop scanner that runs algorithms during scanning.
11. Grundium: Showed off their new four-slide scanning Ocus and the cute one-slide Ocus scanner.
12.  Andrej Bychkov discussed his poster on the use of ChatGPT by pathologists and told me about the World Tumor Registry initiative.

Be Part of the Pathology Evolution: Stay informed on the latest in digital pathology innovations. Subscribe for more insights, become a member of the Digital Pathology Club, and get your complimentary copy of “Digital Pathology 101“. Embark on your path to discovery and progress in the fascinating world of pathology.

• Digital Pathology Club Membership
• Free Digital Pathology 101 eBook

• USCAP 113th Annual Meeting: Bridging Education to Life
• How to choose a whole slide imaging scanner for digital pathology w/ Doug Stapleton, Hamamatsu
• What You Need to Know About Digital Pathology Trends: Takeaways from the DP & AI Global Engage Event with Giovanni Lujan, Ohio State University
• New trends and recent paradigms shift in the digital pathology industry
• What Does the FDA Say About Digital Pathology for Nonclinical Toxicology Studies?

Aleks: [00:00:00]  My Digital Pathology Trailblazers. This is an impromptu podcast episode after I came back from USCAP.   I went on Wednesday, today is Thursday and I want to publish it on Friday and I bet my team is going to love this turnaround time but they are amazing and we’re going to make it happen because its the most relevant right now.  

So. My journey to USCAP and by the way, I don’t know if it’s U.S.-CAP, or ASCAP or how you pronounce this conference, but basically U.S.C.A.P, I went there on Wednesday, March 27th. Why did I even go there? 

Well, there was a very specific reason why I went there. A Digital Pathology Place sponsor invited me. Hamamatsu, the company that just recently got the FDA clearance for their scanner, S360. We have a partnership. In this partnership, [00:01:00] we create content together. This is what I do with the Digital Pathology Place sponsors. So, when we were doing content planning, sometime ago. I don’t know. I don’t remember when we decided, “Hey, how about we do this video about USCAP, about this other scanner S20.”, which they just launched. So big shout out to Hamamatsu. Let’s start with that because this is the reason why I even went there and we had the time slot scheduled to create this content. I’m going to tell you more about it. 

So, I go to a conference, right? I love conferences. I have not been going to so many recently. I have two little kids, one is three years old and one is five year old. I also go multiple times to Poland during the year. 

So the travel time, I’m not that flexible and not that like generous with my travel time anymore, but you might not know this in my previous life. [00:02:00] When I was still a practicing veterinarian and when I was still a veterinary student, I used to be a conference interpreter.  So I spoke English, I speak a couple of languages. So basically when foreign speakers would come to Poland to speak at veterinary conferences, I would interpret and I would do consecutive translation and simultaneous translation. So I would sit in the booth with headphones. Here are my headphones. And basically translate real time. That was something I was doing and I love the vibe of conferences. I like, go to a conference and I get like, super hyped up. And that was the case with CAP as well. 

But, I… preparing for things ahead of time is not my strength. I’m working on it, there is room for improvement, so the night before I prepare everything, I like prepare all my electronics, I know that I need to charge things because I’m gonna be running [00:03:00] around and trying to create content for all the Digital Pathology Place supporters, they are super important to me, so I wanted to support them as well. And Hamamatsu made that possible so that I could also go to the booths of my other supporters. 

Anyway, so I prepare all the tech and, I put like five chargers, wherever I even bought snacks, everything. And then I go to sleep at 12 o’clock and I have to wake up at five because I want to leave at six. So, the conference was in Baltimore. I’m in Pennsylvania at the border with Maryland close to Gettysburg, Fairfield, Pennsylvania. Population of 500. So I was delighted that it was in Baltimore because it was just one hour and a half drive. So I’m like, okay, I leave at six. I’m going to be there at eight.  Then they have one hour to, you know, do some vlogging and organize myself and maybe get a coffee and breakfast, whatever. That didn’t happen. So, [00:04:00] I leave at [6:45], and it’s raining, but that was still okay. I kind of like on purpose give myself this,  earlier departure time so that I can actually make it on time. I’m like, okay, I’m going to be there and then, I’m going to just leave the car at the hotel. I’m going to just pay for the valet parking so that I don’t have to bother with the car. All good. Right. 

I arrived there and it’s at the conference center. It’s not at the hotel. So I’m like, okay, let me find the parking.  And I just stand there in some traffic light in front of this conference center and I see a person. I’m like, I know him, “Do I shout and say hi or not? And I’m like, Rob, Rob, Rob, Robert Russel!” And then he turns around and we just say hi and I’m like, [00:05:00] “Rob, Bob, do you know where there’s a parking spot?” And, so, first of all, I was glad it was actually him because I was shouting, like, I just opened my window and I was shouting, like, Robert Russel. Anyway, and Bob is working for Smart In Media. And Smart In Media is a digital pathology place sponsor as well. I was scheduled to show up at their booths as well. I’m going to tell you about that later. But anyway, I was glad it was him, but unfortunately he was, at the hotel there. So he didn’t know, about any parking. So, but that’s okay. I just like, I’m like, okay, there’s going to be something, there must be something. If not, I’m just going to go to some other hotel and they’re going to valet me. Right? Like, why not? But the universe was nice to me. I find, just a normal public, this underground parking, in a few minutes.

I’m super happy. Get my ticket. All good. And go to the convention center, walking distance. And what I was [00:06:00] doing all day was I walk around with this camera. It’s my newest camera. There’s going to be a story about this camera, so stay tuned. Anyway, so I go in, print my badge, the badge printing was from a QR code, super high tech, and I go there.  And in the corner of my eye, I catch a person. I’m like, “do I know this person? Yes, I know this person. This is Raj Singh”. And I’m like, “Oh, Dr. Raj Singh, Mr. Pathpresenter.” 

“Aleks: I enter, I get my badge. And then what do I see? Mr. Raj, who is the founder of PathPresenter. And we recently had a podcast.” So nice to meet you.

Raj: So nice to talk to you…”

Aleks: So that was the first person I met at USCAP and he was of course going to some meetings as super busy person.

Okay. I printed my badge and I’m like, okay, where is the exhibit hall? And it was in [00:07:00] the basement. It wasn’t really like a basement, but it was a lower level of this convention center. And so this impromptu podcast episode, I just needed to tell you about my day at USCAP. Because there’s going to be a vlog where I’m doing this as I go through the day.

But this vlog is going to be more edited than what I’m doing right now. So it’s going to take some time and my team is going to be working on it. And I just needed to share it with you because why, why did I need to share it with you? Because I want to, first of all, but second, I wanted to meet a lot more people.  I’m going to get to this in a second as well, but let me walk you through my day. It was a cool day. 

So I go to the basement. In this exhibit hall, and I’m kind of clueless where everything is in the meeting, and I’m looking for a booth number 1000 something, something. A booth, Techcyte, Techcyte, the company Techcyte.

So I’m [00:08:00] already looking a little bit clueless, with like my bag that is overpacked, I totally overpacked. But this like bulky bag with my phone in one hand, camera, and looking a little bit like, not as composed as you should be at a scientific, slash medical conference. Anyway, I’m on the verge of asking the conference person, okay, where’s this booth?

And, then. In the corner of my eye, I see a group of guys passing and one of them says, you might want to go with us. And I look around. And this person is no other person than Ben Cahoon, the CEO of Techcyte and the team of Techcyte. So universe loves me again. Like, I’m at the verge of being late to my first meeting, which was at nine o’clock, but they enter at the same time and they see me and they recognize me and I recognize them.

And I’m so happy because, Ben was a guest at the podcast, I think two years [00:09:00] ago, maybe even, longer than two years ago. I’m going to link to this podcast. But basically a lot has happened at Techcyte since we talked last time. They are so dynamic anyway. So that was super cool to meet their team.

“Aleks: The TechCyte team, Techcyte-Pathology Unified and up for some big things. Anything of the big things that you can tell about right now. 

Ben: Right now? 

Aleks: Yes. 

Ben; I mean, one of the biggest things we’ve got going on is our relationship with BD and they’re selling our cervical cytology a lot… 

Aleks: This is amazing. They have a lot more in the making and we’re going to be talking about this. So stay tuned”

Aleks: So we go together to their, they had these, like conference, not a, it’s not a conference booth. It’s a meeting booth, like a, I don’t know, a plastic container that you can rent [00:10:00] at the conference where you can have private meetings with people you want to talk with. So we did have a meeting scheduled at nine because Techcyte is up to some big things.

We’re going to be talking about these things in the future. I cannot tell you more than that, but just stay tuned. So basically that what the meeting was about and they were super nice because I was able to leave my bulky bag there and there’s going to be another story about the bag later.

Before I let you know about the rest of my day, let me show you my schedule, right? So at, [8:45], I was supposed to have a meeting, like a virtual meeting in an entrepreneur group that I belong to. And I didn’t take that, but then, nine o’clock meeting with Techcyte, [9:30] meeting at the Corista booth, then 10 AM meeting with SmartInMedia, [10:30] meeting with [00:11:00] Proscia. And then 11 meeting with Epredia.  [11:30] meeting with Aiforia, 12 to [1:30], that was the Hamamatsu time blocked for our content creation. Then, [1:30] Indica Labs, 2 o’clock Path Presenter, then Pramana, every half an hour, then Owkin, then Grandium. So can you see how I already failed myself with planning the day like this?

So my second meeting, was shorter, was like the person I was supposed to meet, couldn’t make it. And, so I gained a little bit time back, but can you see how like, I didn’t even plan when I need to go to the bathroom? No, don’t do that to yourself. Like I did it yesterday and that was a mistake.  That was a stupid thing to do, Alex. Don’t do it anymore. 

Anyway. So I scheduled those meetings back to back. And why did I do this? Because I wanted to see as many of the digital [00:12:00] pathology place sponsors as possible, and I wanted to show them to the world and show my appreciation, but also, I was telling my, digital pathology trailblazers, I was telling you in the newsletter, in the email communication, Hey, I’m going to be there.

I’m going to meet you. And I totally missed out on this. So that’s why I thought, I do want to record this podcast because I have seen people in between the booths, with. A few of you, I got the chance to talk, with a few of you. I missed a scheduled meeting, so I apologize for that. But I know that many of you, maybe saw me, I saw many of you and I couldn’t just talk to you and I don’t want to make that mistake next time.

No way. So, I think I will have my assistant schedule the day for me because clearly I’m not capable of doing that myself in a [00:13:00] responsible way. 

But moving on with the day. So then I, and, let me tell you how this exposition, all the booths look like. Well. It kind of had the layout and what would say at the top, like in the supermarkets, you have like cereal here and sugar here.  So they had like the rows with the number. The 500 is here. The 600 is here. The thousand is here. But it was, interrupted with, like a made up or like also like with some plastic walls lecture halls. So you would go and you would have booth 500 to 520 and then like this hall. And, so it took me a little bit, this lecture hall, it took me a few minutes to figure out that you actually have to keep going and behind there is, there are the other numbers, but it wasn’t always that way. So I was kind of looking lost. I think I was looking lost. Anyway, so I go to my next meeting [00:14:00] and, a person shouts at me, “Alex”, and I look at him. And I see Dr. Ralp Huss, my first ever boss. 

“Aleks: This is my first boss, real boss ever, Dr. Ralp Huss, who sent me on the path I am today. And I’m so grateful. Today, Ralph, what are you doing today? You were advising for? 

Ralf: Visiopharm 

Aleks: Visiopharm. Yes. Okay, a big, digital pathology player as well. 

Ralf: And I’m heading out. 

Aleks: And I just came.” 

Aleks: After my residency, I started my digital pathology career. Let’s call it career or let’s, let’s go differently. I started gaining my digital pathology expertise at the company called Definiens. They were doing image analysis for, various clients and, serving pharma industry with their immune oncology portfolio. Now they’re a part of AstraZeneca. [00:15:00] Anyway, he was my first real boss ever. And he basically put me on the path I am on today. No, he didn’t tell me to do YouTube and podcast, but, I remember when, after I was changing the jobs and, and we went for like, debriefing slash goodbye lunch, and we were just chatting and I asked, 

“Hey, Ralf, like, we’ve worked together. You’ve seen me. What do you think like would be a good career path for me?” 

And he basically told me, “With your personality and how you like operate in the world, don’t try to climb the corporate ladder. You are more of a subject matter expert and this is where you can contribute better and you can like provide value to a broader audience.”

And I took that to heart and this is what basically put me here in front of you in this podcast. [00:16:00] I decided that the subject matter expert path is for me. And then, you know, it took, it took a form of being educational content creator. Educational content creator in the digital space, because what I also realized at some point when I was doing my PhD, that teaching the same stuff all over again is a superpower. 

Anyway, that’s a, topic for another conversation. So I met Ralf, Dr. Ralf Huss. He was there advising for VisioPharm, who, we worked together as well, and you might have seen podcasts that we did together, with their application scientists on LinkedIn. I saw the post recently.

Anyway, so he was advising for Visiopharm. He was leaving the conference. He had to go back. [00:17:00] I was just, you know, that was my second meeting. But that was so nice to see him. This was, this was a heartwarming thing to see somebody who kind of put me on the trajectory I’m on right now. 

So at the Corista booth, I learned some, cool things about their software that are coming out. And, this is. Implementing voice recognition, so they’re very much focusing on improving the pathologist, the digital pathology experience for the pathologist, improving the, reporting and implementing some cool things. it’s coming, they were showing,  a demo at the booth, how it’s going to be working with the software. So this new thing is coming from Corista. 

So after Corista, I go to my newest sponsor. I go to the booth of Smart in Media. If you’ve seen my recent video, I think two videos ago, I’m going to link it on YouTube [00:18:00] in the cards about the new camera that I have on my microscope. Smart in Media camera, tiny little thing that lets you stream from your microscope.  You can basically stream from your microscope stage, whatever you’re doing there, you can, share it with a phone, with a QR code. Cool little thing that lives now on my microscope. And it also scans slides. Like, how cool is that? Anyway, so I met with their team and, I learned there’s something new as well.

So about this camera, I already knew I made a video and it was, it was well received, also from you. So thank you so much for liking, commenting and watching it. But I also, learned that they have a little camera for grossing, for the grossing room. So, I was thinking that that would be pretty handy also in the toxicologic pathology space for in the necropsy room.

So they have this little [00:19:00] device and they have a bunch of other things, that, you know, you can learn about, when you visit their website,  I have their Patho Zoom live view and scan camera. So definitely recommend that as well. And that was the first booth where I got some candy. So, I was so well prepared for this trip.

I even bought healthy snacks. Some nuts and beef jerky and whatever. I don’t know, healthy stuff. Because I knew I’m not gonna have time to eat. And what did Alex do? Alex left all the snacks on the counter. Today, so a day before, I was eating part of those snacks for lunch. Anyway, that was left on the counter.

And I came back home and my husband was like, “Oh my goodness, Alex. That’s just you.” 

Anyway, so I lost the, I left the snacks and, Smart In Media fed me first with some candy. And then later I ate some candy, I know at the Grundium booth. And, [00:20:00] and at Pramana. And I apologize for, not mentioning everyone who fed me during that day.  I don’t remember, but I very much appreciate you feeding me candy. So I was living that day on candy and coffee. I was super hyped up because I went to a conference and as I told you, I love conferences and yeah, that was something that caused significant exhaustion at the end of the day, but let me, let me walk you through the rest of my day.

The next meeting was with Proscia team, and Proscia team had a super very cool, important milestone. They just received the 510k clearance for their software for Concentriq AP-Dx. This is what got the clearance because they have other software products as well. And one for life sciences as well that I was checking out.  But the super huge milestone is the clearance [00:21:00]. And this is then now an official medical device. So we spend some time talking about that at the Proscia team. 

“Aleks: I’m at the Procia booth and look what I have here a kidney. They have a solution for toxpath as well. So the team is working on something that is friendly for Toxicologic pathologists.  It’s right there. They have a solution for primary reads for ToxPath, which I love because I’m a toxicologic pathologist. Thank you Proscia team for doing this for us as well.” 

And they did feed me candy as well. I remember they had those, round candies, white chocolate and dark chocolate. They were very, very tasty.

Thank you so much, Proscia team, for feeding me. I was going around, so I was going around with this camera. And basically, a camera and my phone. So the only two devices that I actually had to have with [00:22:00] me were, like they fit in your pocket. It’s the phone and this little camera. And of course I had a super bulky bag.

So Proscia team fed me and told me about their achievement. And we were also talking about, okay, how can we work together in the future? And from the Proscia team, I went to the Epredia booth and, and shout out to Epredia, Epredia and Digital Pathology Place just started working together. They are a VIP sponsor, very important partner for us.

And their booth was amazing. And they had all their equipment there. So the USCAP is not just digital pathology focus, but obviously digital pathology is now, part, like a sub circle of the big circle of pathology. So they had all their,  pathology equipment and [00:23:00] they had a scanner as well, this scanner.

So I’ve seen that in their scanners, the, P1000. It like, opens and you can see inside this scanner and they had one with the water immersion and I was able to basically put my head inside of there and do a little short video. So let me show you this short video right now. 

“Aleks: We are at Epredia booth and I’m here with Ryan, 

Ryan: The Director of Global Business for our digital pathology 

Aleks: A VIP at Epredia. Ryan, do you have any cool things that you would like to share that you are allowed to share? 

Ryan: You know, at Epredia, we’ve always been focused on the workflow of the AP laboratory, and since expanding our portfolio into digital pathology, we’ve really focused on how do we take the quality and the consistency of all of our workflow solutions and expand that into the digital world.  So with all of our products ranging from a single slide scanner all the way up to 1, 000, we really focus on how do we optimize [00:24:00] the workflow. with the laboratory to not only output very high quality images in a quick manner, but also make sure that that data is usable and diverse or interoperable with an architecture you may already have in place.

Aleks: This is the one with water immersion. 

Ryan: So what this does is it automates the ability to do water immersion for slides that demand it. So we have three objectives in this instrument. We have one that yields a 40X resolution, 80X. 

Aleks: This is so cool world. I’m like inside the scanner.” 

Aleks: So Epredia had a really nice booth with everything displayed. And I wanted to come back. And record a real video and like really like show the camera, put this camera into the scanner and like show the objectives. And this was the water immersion new scanner that they have that you can scan at 80x and did I do it? No, my friends, I didn’t do it.  And I very much want to do it. So we’re going to be discussing with, Epredia if we can [00:25:00] do it at a later time. But, what did Alex think? That they close at five o’clock. Wrong. They closed the exhibit hall at four o’clock. So at some point I was still like in the middle of a conversation at the end of the day.

And it’s like, Oh, “All exhibitors, the conference is closed now, please start packing”, or something like that anyway. And I’m like, Oh, okay. I think, I overscheduled myself, not only like over my schedule, but also, beyond the actually how long the conference was. So I actually missed two meetings. I already apologized.

I now, I’m not gonna say what meetings I missed, but I publicly apologize for missing any meetings at the conference. No excuses. Just my miss planning. 

From Epredia booth, I went to another sponsor Aiforia. Aiforia is has a fantastic name. [00:26:00] I think it’s an amazing name because it stands for AI for Image Analysis, AforIA.

It’s beautiful, like, I love it. So I went to visit the Aiforia booth and we of course recorded a clip. 

“Aleks: Aiforia is a new thing in the store that I’m of course interested in. It’s the ToxPath module for ToxPath. And here I am with the Aiforia team. Ville, can you tell me about this new GLP compliant thing for ToxPath? What is it for? Ville, can we do primary reads of this thing for Toxpath? 

Ville: Yeah, definitely. 

Aleks: And so, and you guys are, of course, image analysis. Can you do image analysis? Can you do AI on those slides? 

Ville: Yeah, that’s basically the core of Aiforia. 

Aleks: Can you pick like any and run any model that you created if it’s like connected?

Ville: Yeah, yeah. You can create any models at Aiforia and use it. 

Aleks: That is so cool. So this is the AI on ToxPath module in action. [00:27:00] And this is…

Aiforia Representative: Counting of kidney glomeruli. 

Aleks: Yes and look… 

Aiforia Representative: And differentiating between sclerotic and viable. 

Aleks: They count, they differentiate, they segment, and life is easier for the pathologist and a better quantification of the source.”

And of course, I mean, USCAP is for MD pathologists, I’m a veterinary pathologist, so I kind of like selfishly asked, “Hey, what about the GLP compliant module that you have for primary reads for ToxPath?  And the Aiforian showed me the module, so I was looking into that a little bit and I liked it a lot. And then it was the big content recording time for Hamamatsu.

So the protagonist of this content was supposed to be the little scanner, S20. Maybe I should not call it a little scanner. We should operate with the proper names. Anyway, S20, which is a small scanner, bench top, they say. I would say it’s the size of [00:28:00] like maybe four printers, put together six printers, definitely benchtop little thing, that can scan 20 slides.

So I go to the Hamamatsu booth and ask, “Where is our protagonist? Where’s the little scanner?” And I only see the big scanner there, the huge one, which, I should not say only because this is also a very important, player in the digital pathology space. This is the S360 that received the 510k clearance as well. Congratulations! But I’m like, “Where’s the little one? We’re supposed to make a video about the little one.” And they’re like, “It’s not in our booth. It’s in the Agilent booth.” And I’m like, “Agilent booth? Why would they have your scanner?”, “Oh, because we have a partnership with them and they also have a partnership with Proscia, which by the way, the Proscia FDA clearance was, on the Hamamatsu scanner.”  So they partnered [00:29:00] together and, they say, okay, “Let’s go to the Agilent booth.” Okay, and of course, as you can judge by the tone of my voice and by the expression of my face, I didn’t know, like, where would digital pathology fit, into Agilent strategy? And they have the full workflow. They have, everything from staining, to digital images and probably option to, for image analysis because Concentriq has that option. So they partner with Hamamatsu for the scanning. They partner with, Procia for image management and they have the full thing. And so, yeah, that was something I learned about Agilent. And, I was very happy because, I’m always super happy when people who have, you know, super cool expertise in one area of digital pathology have, work together.

So they like put everything [00:30:00] together and the workflow was displayed at the Agilent booth and the scanner as well. And, together with the Hamamatsu application specialist who knew like every single thing about the scanner. We, made a little video about, this new product. So you’re going to be seeing this in the vlog, the full one in the vlog.

“Aleks: Hamamatsu booth. And this is the reason why I’m actually here. I’m here with the Hamamatsu team, Amy and Mark. How are you guys? And I saw in the background, you have a big milestone of yours. 

Mark: The S360MD system. It’s 510K cleared with the monitor, to maintain form. hardware to software to maintain the pixel pathway.

Aleks: This is a big milestone and I am super proud of all of those serious digital pathology players that actually achieved that milestone after CMS said, “Hey, no more non [00:31:00] cleared systems.” So, this is amazing.”

Aleks: And, we were actually done with this video ahead of schedule. Yehey, something ahead of schedule in my life. I’m always very happy when that happens. And then I like procrastinate and the next thing is not ahead of schedule. But anyway,  we were ahead of schedule and, we also, made a short video from the booth.  About the big scanner and about the FDA clearance, for the big scanner. And this actually was posted in almost real time on LinkedIn. 

And again, I’m just like annoyed with myself that I didn’t plan it better. My intention was to go to the conference and, everyone who’s supporting digital pathology place, I wanted to go to their booth and make a short video for LinkedIn.

I made the videos. So that part [00:32:00] of the plan actually,  worked out, but, I wanted to post them right then and there so that everybody could see it real time on social media. And I didn’t have time for that. So we are going to be seeing these shorts, on Friday, probably. Sometime soon. And, and obviously you’re going to see them in this video.

But I wanted to have them out on LinkedIn in real time. This didn’t happen and I will definitely plan differently for next time. But the, content creation for Hamamatsu with the little scanner. Oh yeah, I’m just going to be calling it little scanner. The S20, was a success. And we, and from there, I went to the booth of my next sponsor, Indica Labs.

And Indica Labs has a super cool thing in their booth. It was, this pathologist [00:33:00] cockpit. What is that? It looks a little bit. It’s actually officially a gaming chair with a gaming monitor. It, what is a gaming chair for non gamers. It’s, like a dentist chair or like a, just a chair that you can like lean back, very comfortable. And then it has this curved screen where you can like directly look at it without even moving your head. And on that screen, they had image analysis results, results projected from Halo. And basically displaying their software. But this installation was super cool. And I was sitting in it. 

“Aleks: Indica Labs has something very, very funky that I want to get into.

I have the Indica Labs team.

I’m inside and this here, I have a super mouse [00:34:00] and like, what is this even? This is future. Okay. So what’s Indica Lab about and why do you guys have this futuristic chair here? 

Indica Representative: Yeah. So Indica, Indica Labs has been around since 2011. Basically we provide comprehensive software solutions. We do image analysis, artificial intelligence and image management.  We have this chair here. It gets a lot of attention. Kind of a cockpit of the future. People sit down, they enjoy it, it’s kind of fun, but it gets them to open up and talk about where they are in their digital pathology journey. And so we just ask them where they are and if they’d like to see some, you know, a deeper dive into our software and some of our solutions.” 

Aleks: With indica labs team, we meet at my specialty conferences and toxicologic pathology conferences at veterinary conferences because they also have products. They also have software for life sciences. So, when I go to conferences, actually we meet at almost every [00:35:00] conference that I go to. 

And from the Indica Lab’s booth, I went to the PathPresenter booth to meet Patrick Miles, the CEO of Path Presenter. And you remember that I started actually my day with meeting Dr. Raj Singh. And so PathPresenter had a booth there, strategically placed near the booth of a company called Iron Mountain. 

So about that in a second. But first, now is the story about the camera. So I go with this camera to the PathPresenter booth and Patrick is looking at it, “Hmm, what’s this camera? And I’m like, “It’s the DJI.” “Oh, is that the DJI Pocket Osmo Pocket 3? And I’m like looking at him. Hmmm, clearly Patrick knows something about cameras.  And he, and he’s like, “Oh, I thought it was the Insta360.” Which is another camera. It’s my web camera that I’m using for, [00:36:00] for this video, actually. So he was so knowledgeable about these little pocket cameras.  I was impressed. And then I also met, a few members of the PathPresenter team that, of course impressed me with their knowledge. I’m impressed with the speed of this company, with how they, and I also always benchmark like companies progress from, like the first time I had a podcast with them. So obviously I only have this benchmark for a few companies, but, PathPresenter, we just recently recorded a podcast with Raj, and, before that, they were like my first, second guest.

Raj was my first, second guest, on the podcast. And when I see, like, what they did from then, which was just like three years ago, and now, like, their, their platform addresses every single aspect [00:37:00] of pathology life, I think. I don’t know. So anyway, I, I’m impressed with them and I was impressed with the team and they were next to a booth of a company called Iron Mountain. 

So I knew they had a partnership. So I was then introduced to the managing director of, Iron Mountain’s digital pathology division. And oh my goodness, there is some crazy stuff happening with slide archiving that Iron Mountain is, involved in. So they have, pathology vaults. And then like, “What’s a vault?” So a vault is a place where they store glass slides. So they have like, they archive glass slides for institutions, for pathology labs, for hospitals, and like million of slides scale. Like, I don’t know, it’s inconceivable scale for me, but basically how I imagine this, this is [00:38:00] like somewhere underground, like a vault full of Digital, sorry, full of pathology slides.

So I had a similar vault. It wasn’t a vault, but it was an archive, when I was doing my PhD, at the Freie University, in Berlin, in Germany. So we had this archive in the basement. So that’s always how I imagined Glass Slide archives. And I was pulling a lot of slides of that archive for my PhD. It was a basically a retrospective study where I had to go through years of slides with, perivascular mononuclear infiltrates in the brain of different animals. But anyway, that is my picture of an archive. And when I heard pathology vault, I thought of something like that underground. And in this pathology vault, not only the glass slides are scanned, but the archival scanning is happening.

So they partner with different companies, [00:39:00] one of them being Pramana to archive, to digitize the archives of institutions. And then obviously, you can work with those digital files. So I was super curious about that. And very happy to learn about what they do from their team. So basically you don’t have to digitize.

You can just archive. And if you want those slides, they take care of it. And they have, they work with PathPresenter. So they have,  the software that they’re using, they can just like send you links to the slides you want to have scanned.  you can, you don’t have to scan like whole archive. You can just request certain slides.  So very empowering,  because it’s flexible and on demand,  you can do at scale, you can do however you want. 

So,  from there, actually, I went to the Pramana booth and I always want to see the robots that they have. I call them robots. They are scanning units. They [00:40:00] look different than a scanner because they, they like have, arms that take the slides and it’s a combination of robotics and imaging. So unfortunately, they only had a video of these robots. I still need to go to a conference or to a place where they are and make a video about them. But anyway,  but what they are up to now, they have a little benchtop scanner as well that can run all types of algorithms in it. While This slides are being scanned.

So this is also something innovative. You don’t have to wait till the scan is done and then run an algorithm on it. You can do it while the slide is scanning.  and,  we were demoing some algorithms, tech site for pap smears, and they had algorithms from other partners as well. So,  this little tiny thing, it was cool too.

“Aleks: Matt, I see a little tiny here, Pramana [00:41:00] scanner that doesn’t look like a robot. The other ones do look like robots. They are very futuristic. Can you tell me about the scanner? 

Matt: Yeah, so,  you are right that it’s not fed with a robotic arm like our high throughput scanners.  but really that’s where the differences end, right?  The hardware and the software in this machine are identical to our high throughput systems. And so we’re still trying to do two main things, right? Create that high quality image and minimize human intervention. So minimizing intervention is blatantly apparent with the robotic fed system, but there’s a lot that we’re doing in terms of quality control, whether we’re automating that or making it very simple for manual review,  that you can do in both systems.” 

The next team I visited was the Grundium team. If you have been with me for a long time and you’ve seen my,  initial videos, one of those initial videos on LinkedIn was a review of the Grundium Ocus Scanner.  So I go to the Grundium booth [00:42:00] and I look at the scanner and I’m like, “It grew! That Ocus grew! What happened?” And then I look around, and actually, this is a new product. It’s not launched yet. It’s gonna be out there, I think, later in the year.  we’re gonna be talking about it as well. But the new product is a four slide scanning little Ocus.  and then on the peripheries they had the, the normal one slide Ocuses.  And,  this is one of the cutest digital pathology device,  that I have seen in my life. If not the cutest, I think I would voted for the cutest one. But it was so funny. I look like it’s bigger. What happened?  and it just,  now can scan four slides, so this is cool as well. 

And that was it for my meeting, other than the ones that I missed. But that wasn’t everything that I wanted to do at this conference. So, another big  [00:43:00] important thing on the agenda was finding Andrey Bychkov and his poster. Andrey Bychkov works in Japan at the Kameda Medical Center, and he’s super active in the digital pathology space, also AI for pathology. What poster did I want to find?

The poster about the use of ChatGPT by pathologists. I’ve been waiting for this to be published in one form or another. So I don’t know if,  any of my pathologists, digital pathology trailblazers who are pathologists,  if you took part in his survey. So that was the result of a survey that he did on,  Google Forms. And I took part in the survey, but I think,  I was not qualified because I’m a veterinary pathologist and it was for MD pathologist, but anyway, so let me show you something, let me tell you about the poster that I actually got I have the poster, he gave me the poster and [00:44:00] we did a video about it. He actually presented it to me and there is going to be a separate video on that.

But I did meet Andrey and there was another thing I wanted to learn from him because he’s involved in another initiative. I just saw a YouTube video about it. Also, you know, brand new, fresh off the press of LinkedIn,  an initiative called it’s World Tumor Registry, WTR. And this is a repository of whole slide images.

They started with thyroid slides. Andrey is a specialist in thyroid and I also had thyroid cancer and he told me that,  some don’t even consider it cancer. So anyway, we had a cool conversation and it’s going to be in the vlog.  but I went to that booth with, together with Andrey. So to check out the World Tumor Registry, you go to WorldTumorRegistry.gov [00:45:00] and you can basically register there and you can just access it there. 

So I was talking to Alyaksandr Nikitski, Dr. Alyaksandr Nikitski, Sasha. And,  so he told me all about it and he’s also super involved in the brain behind this operation. But you know what he kind of intimidated me with, with the recording gear that he had in his booth.

I don’t know what kind of content they were creating. I’m very curious to see that. I hope they’re going to be publishing on YouTube, but basically he had the teleprompter and really professional cameras. So that was cool. Definitely a,  design brain,  in addition to being a doctor and running the World Tumor Registry.

And that was the booth where I was at when,  I heard this, “Oh, it’s four o’clock, the exhibit hall closes.”  So basically we were kicked [00:46:00] out,  out of the exhibit hall. And before that, so I did manage to talk with Andrey about his poster. 

I also talked with Prasant Perugupalli from Pramana about his poster.  It was an amazing conversation that I didn’t record. I am just so angry with myself. I don’t know what I did with this camera. Somehow I didn’t click the button. Whatever. The biggest nightmare of a reporter, journalist, podcaster, content creator is “Oh, I forgot to hit record.” And this is what happened. Oh my goodness.

So, but the poster is super engaging. So we’re talking with Pramana,  if we can maybe make a separate video about it. So if we decide to do that, I’m going to let you know, but oh my goodness, that was,  that was embarrassing. [00:47:00] Yes, that will never happen again. And that was the end of the day for me.  

I was exhausted.  I looked exhausted. And I was coming out of the exhibit hall. And, and I actually had people tell me, oh, you look exhausted. Yes, I am. I didn’t really eat. I only drank coffee, whatever, but it was an amazing day. And when I was going to the conference, I was like, “Hmm, I am not an MD pathologist.  I mean, I’ve been active in this digital pathology space,  for quite some time, but Oh, how, how, how is it going to be? Is anybody gonna know who I am other than the people that I actually am scheduled,  to do interviews with or, or to create content with?” 

And I was so surprised. Okay, like. I, I didn’t know if I’m supposed to talk about it or not, it’s like, okay, maybe I’m too vain or whatever, [00:48:00] but it was just so rewarding to have people,  tell me either at the booths or in the hallway, I listened to your podcast or I read your book twice and then listen to the audio book. That was so rewarding. It means that this actually, what I’m doing makes sense, that you guys are listening to this, that there is a tribe of digital pathology trailblazers that want to advance this technology.  So this is so cool. 

Another cool thing was, oh, I do need to tell another story because my bag actually was still at the TechCyte booth, right?

So,  anyway, another story was,  I would come,  across people that well, that was the first time I would meet them in person, but I knew them because they were guests on my podcast and their relationship,  I built with them in the podcast gave me the confidence to basically approach them and hug them as my [00:49:00] friends.  So,  I hope it was always appropriate,  but,  that felt just so nice.  that I totally had the connection to the participants and to people who I saw there after the final,  call out that it was over, it’s 16 o’clock, please,  get out of here. And I’m like, okay, my bag is,  in the TechCyte booth.

So I go to the TechCyte booth,  and I knock on the door and,  they still had a meeting. And I’m like, just ignore me. And,  they, they had a guest there.  and I’m just like searching for stuff in my bag and I’m getting,  ready to go out.  and,  Ben asked me, “Hey, Alex, do you know Mariano?” And, I saw Mariano, saw him from the back, and I’m like, hmm, I might know him.

And then he turns around, and it’s Mariano de Socarraz, who I just had on the podcast. This podcast is not out [00:50:00] yet, so you will listen to it later. But I was like, oh, Mariano, como estas? Because Mariano is in Puerto Rico. And yeah. So that was a cool encounter as well. And so we hugged and,  we were talking for a little bit and then.

That was it. That was it for USCAP for me.  I found my car without any problems. I left Baltimore and there was like maybe 15 minutes of traffic. So, that was all good. So much better than D.C. traffic. So, I know that not everybody was thrilled about Baltimore being their location. I was so thrilled. I could just drive there.

So if there is a pathology conference in Baltimore, I’m coming. Sign me up. It’s close to home and the traffic is so much better than DC or wherever if I have to fly or whatever, right. So that was nice. I needed to tell you this story, [00:51:00] because now we’re going to be  winding down for the weekend, for the Easter, for those who celebrate Easter, happy Easter.

So I needed to let you know my adventure at USCAP. And thank you so much for your support. Thank you so much for all,  of you that were waving at me that,  would just come and say hi, even though I was looking crazy busy, running a little bit like a headless chicken.  But it, it meant the world to me and your support means the world to me.

So thank you so much. And I talk to you in the next episode.