Here are some .pdf brochures from LLTech regarding their Light-CT Scanner Fast Tissue Imaging System, a paper on full-field optical coherence tomography for skin imaging accepted in Dermatology, a paper from the Journal of Pathology Informatics about modified full-field coherence tomography for rapid histology of tissues and finally a paper under review for publication about full-field optical coherence tomography for human breast tissue and breast cancer.

LLTech will be at USCAP 2012 occupying booth 430.

Download LLTECH brochure March 2012

Download FFOCT skin imaging - accepted in Dermatology

Download JPatholInform_2011 Cornell

Download Large field FF-OCT on breast

ViewsIQ at USCAP Booth #814

Come see your slides in a whole new way 

ViewsIQ has invented Panoptiq^TM, an interactive digital slide imaging tool built exactly for YOU, the pathologist. Designed and trialed by top pathologists at Canada's premier healthcare institutions, Panoptiq^TM empowers you to create panoramic images of your slides "on the fly" right under your own microscope. This allows you to see and communicate diagnostic information of the slide in a whole new way.

What is it?

The Panoptiq^TM system begins with your microscope, manually driven by you. By adding a camera and computer with our Panoptiq^TM software to your microscope, you have created a whole new way to view and share your slides. The Panoptiq^TM system allows you to create panoramic images of the slide in real-time at extremely high resolution with any objective, even a 100x oil objective.

Where can you see that? ViewsIQ welcomes you to USCAP at booth #814 in Vancouver.

What will you experience?

Interactively capture panoramic images of pathology slides using 4x to 100x objectives. 

Product Information

Observe and build a panoramic image on the fly 

Build a larger field of view of the tissue sample under microscopic observation by merely navigating the slide with a manual stage. Normally, the tissue sample is observed through a small field of view under the microscope. In contrast, Panoptiq^TM captures the fields of view as you observe the tissue sample and automatically stitches them "on the fly" into one panoramic image. At any time, you can navigate and save the panoramic image on the computer through our user-friendly interface. With desktop sharing software, You can even share the live view of the panoramic image for live consultations, tumor boards, and education.

Refocus the Image

Detect an out-of-focus portion in the panoramic image? Just return to that portion of the slide and readjust the focus with your microscope – the software automatically detects a better focus and replaces the out-of-focus portion with the refocused view. The Panoptiq^TM system preserves the best focus achieved on the panoramic image, even if the slide is observed again at a sub-optimal focus.

Simple Setup

The Panoptiq^TM system includes a high performance computer, high resolution CCD Camera, and the Panoptiq^TM software. System setup is simple. The system can be installed and ready to go within 15 minutes. Extended warranty and support packages are available. Please come to our booth for more information. Representatives from our distributors, Innovative Imaging Concepts and Quorum Technologies, will also be there to help meet your needs.

Company information:

ViewsIQ #115-887 Great Northern Way

Vancouver, BC V5T 4T5

Phone (toll-free): 1-855-VIQ-SCAN (1-855-847-7226) Fax: 416-907-1670

Email: info@viewsiq.ca

Website: http://www.viewsiq.ca

USA Distributor:

Innovative Imaging Concepts

340 Main Street Oxford, MA 01540

Phone: 508-581-0251 Fax: 508-987-7310

E-mail: info@innovative-imaging.net

Website: http://www.innovative-imaging.net

Canada Distributor:

Quorum Technologies

4673 Wellington Road #35 RR# 6

Guelph, Ontario N1H 6J3

Tel: 519-824-0854 Fax: 519-824-5845

E-mail: info@quorumtechnologies.com

Website: http://www.quorumtechnologies.com

Who we are

At Roche, 80,000 people across 150 countries are pushing back the frontiers of healthcare. Working together, we’ve become one of the world’s leading research-focused healthcare groups. Our success is built on innovation, curiosity and diversity, and on seeing each other’s differences as an advantage. To innovate healthcare, Roche has ambitious plans to keep learning and growing – and is seeking people who have the same goals for themselves.

POSITION SUMMARY: 

The imaging scientist will utilize expertise in image processing, machine learning, and pattern recognition and contribute as a member of a highly collaborative team of senior engineers and scientists on initiatives pertaining to the development of imaging technology for Digital Pathology.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:
- Design and develop innovative algorithms for quantitative analysis of histopathology images
- Design, develop and test high-performance analysis engine that can interface with multiple applications. 
- Utilize skills in C/C++, C# and .Net to work on the infrastructure and applications for analysis of digital pathology images. 
- Develop libraries, applications and algorithms for analysis of small and large histopathology images. 
- Building a scalable system capable of handling huge amounts of data with a large user base. 
- Provide technical and/or professional coordination and leadership in the execution of day-to-day program activities, as appropriate to Company objectives
- Collaborate with other technical staff in R&D related to areas such as infrastructure applications, storage and archival systems, and analysis engines. 
- Collaborate with other members of the project team to meet defined scientific and technical needs, expectations and goals. 
- Proactively recommend, and execute tasks and strategies in support of BioImagene’s various product requirements. Partner throughout the research, development and product lifecycle with Core Engineering and TSG Programs, and other related Company business units. 
- Other duties as may be assigned by management in the pursuit of the operational goals of Company 

Who you are

 You’re someone who wants to influence your own development. You’re looking for a company where you have the opportunity to pursue your interests across functions and geographies, and where a job title is not considered the final definition of who you are, but the starting point.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

Formal Training/Education:
Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, Engineering or related field, entry level, or Master's degree with 3+ years relevant experience.
 
Experience:
-Product development experience with a focus on data analysis. A PhD may be considered in lieu of product development experience. Proven track record for innovations in problems solving and analysis
- Candidate should have both a solid practical background with experience in C/C++, and software design and architecture.
- Experience in the design and development of image analysis algorithms for medical images. 
- Experience working throughout the full SDLC (software development lifecycle) from concept to product deliverables through system deployment
 
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:
-Strong understanding and experience in developing pattern recognition algorithms in large datasets. 
-The candidate should enjoy solving complex problems using a mixture of creative ideas that you bring to the table.
-Hands on software development and implementation of image processing algorithms are required. 
-Understanding and following of Software Engineering practices is required. 
-Understanding of image processing as it relates to the development of biomedical image analysis is highly desired. 
- Excellent knowledge of image processing and understanding, Machine Vision, and Pattern Recognition
- Practical knowledge of Machine Learning based methods and techniques
- Excellent background in C/C++, data structures, performance tuning
- Excellent skills in design of high performance software systems
- Strong Object Oriented Programming design, development and practice
- Strong understanding of MVC and other design patterns 
- Understanding of digital Pathology is desirable but not required
-The position requires the candidate to have good mathematical and analytical skills and through knowledge of basic and advanced image processing techniques.
-Excellent written and verbal communication skills required.

Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Link to Roche online application page

Are you thinking about how to unlock the full potential of digital slides most effectively? Correlate unbiased and quantitative readouts provided by automated image analysis with patient outcome or therapy response. Retrieve comprehensive morphological fingerprints and molecular expression profiles on a cell-by-cell basis from digital slides.

Definiens solutions for Quantitative Digital Pathology support your goals in R&D, pre-clinical safety, clinical studies, translational medicine and the development of tissue diagnostics. Visit us at booth #807 to learn more on the novel functionality available with Definiens Tissue Studio 3.5 and the recently introduced Definiens Image Miner.

The following talks by some of our customers will provide an excellent overview of benefits from using Definiens solutions for image and data analysis:

[2139] Novel Quantitative Image-Analysis Based Scoring Technique for In-Situ Assessment of mRNA in Archival Tumor Tissues: Strong Correlation between Manual and Automated Schemes Authors: Jeffery C Hanson, Timothy R Holzer, Angie D Fulford, Robert J Konrad, Aejaz Nasir   Date/Time: Monday, March 19, 2012 - 1:00 PM   Session Info: Poster Session II # 308, Monday Afternoon   Location: CC Exhibit Hall B3 & C

[1389] Automated Image Analysis and Scoring of Tartrate Resistance Acid Phosphatase Preparations  Authors: Bryan Dangott, Mohamed Salama   Date/Time: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - 9:30 AM   Session Info: Poster Session V # 212, Wednesday Morning   Location: CC Exhibit Hall B3 & C

[1634] Validation of Automated Image Analysis for Hematopathology   Authors: Bryan Dangott, Nisha Ramesh, Tolga Tasdizen, Mohamed Salama   Date/Time: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 1:00 PM   Session Info: Poster Session IV # 221, Tuesday Afternoon   Location: CC Exhibit Hall B3 & C

[1487] Notch/HES1 and PARP1 Protein Co-Expression among B-Lymphoblastic Leukemia/Lymphoma Patients (pts) Predicts Good Prognosis    Authors: Adnan Mansoor, Payam Pournazari, Michelle Dean, Sarah-Joy Haggstrom, Brant Pohorelic, Farid Kosari, Meer-Taher Shabani-Rad, Jay Patel, Iwona Auer, Xiu Yan Jiang, Doug Demetrick, Nizar Bahlis, Douglas Stewart, Alexander C Kilmowicz   Date/Time: Monday, March 19, 2012 - 2:00 PM   Session Info: Platform Session: Section C, Monday Afternoon   Location: CC 211-214

We hope to meet you in Vancouver!

The Definiens Team

Interesting agreement announced today between Voicebrook and Nuance Communications combining two industry leaders with their respective technologies related to anatomic pathology reporting further strengthens VoiceOver and Dragon products.   

Voicebrook and Nuance Partner to Provide Speech-Powered Reporting Solutions for Anatomic Pathology Laboratories

 Nuance’s Dragon^® Medical 360 Technology to Power Voicebrook’s Industry-Leading VoiceOver^® Software

LAKE SUCCESS, NY, March 14, 2012 – Voicebrook today announced an agreement with Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), in which the two leaders in clinical documentation solutions will work together to deliver comprehensive, speech-enabled reporting solutions for anatomic pathology laboratories. Voicebrook will adapt its industry-leading VoiceOver^® software to maximize and incorporate the benefits of Nuance’s Dragon^® Medical 360 | Network Edition products.

Powered by Nuance’s advanced speech recognition technology, VoiceOver^® is a key component in optimizing anatomic pathology Laboratory Information System (LIS) and Digital Pathology workflows.  Used by more than 200 of the most prestigious private and hospital laboratories across the United States and Canada, VoiceOver^® is proven to deliver enormous savings, efficiencies, and quality improvements to anatomic pathology laboratories.   

“We have partnered with Nuance for over 10 years to bring high-quality speech recognition-based reporting solutions to healthcare organizations.  Our latest agreement expands on this relationship and allows us to provide the most comprehensive speech recognition and reporting solutions for the pathology market,” said Joseph Desiderio, President, Voicebrook.  By pairing VoiceOver^®, our industry-leading Pathology reporting solution, with Nuance’s award-winning Dragon^® Medical 360 line of products, we can offer pathology departments the most advanced solution possible.  We are excited to expand our relationship with Nuance and provide our customers with the healthcare industry’s premier speech platform.  The combination of Nuance’s expertise in creating world-class medical speech recognition applications and our deep knowledge and history in creating pathology reporting solutions makes us uniquely qualified to address the needs of this diverse and challenging market.”

VoiceOver^® includes “Integration Personalities” that voice-optimize all major LIS and Digital Pathology systems, allowing pathology professionals to choose between 100 percent user created, and digital dictation or delegated speech recognition solutions.  VoiceOver^® can also be used to incorporate voice and additional automation to improve other processes including gross photography, slide labeling, even coding and billing. 

“By combining Nuance’s Dragon Medical speech recognition and Voicebrook’s experience in developing and implementing pathology reporting solutions, the companies will deliver high-value solutions, empowering pathologists to rapidly create comprehensive, accurate pathology reports at a significant savings and with near-instant turnaround time, versus laboratory-wide traditional transcription or digital dictation-based solutions,” said Carina Edwards, vice president, healthcare solutions, Nuance Healthcare.   

For more information, please visit http://www.voicebrook.com. 

About Voicebrook

Voicebrook is the leading provider of integrated speech recognition and digital dictation solutions for Pathology. Voicebrook’s VoiceOver^® software integrates directly with most AP/LIS systems, and has been widely deployed in Pathology throughout the US and Canada.  Voicebrook has developed specific best practices for implementation and on-going support, ensuring the most successful deployments of integrated speech recognition technology for Pathology.

Nuance Healthcare

Nuance Healthcare, a division of Nuance Communications, is the market leader in providing clinical understanding solutions that accurately capture and transform the patient story into meaningful, actionable information.  Thousands of hospitals, providers and payers worldwide trust Nuance voice-enabled clinical documentation and analytics solutions to facilitate smarter, more efficient decisions across the healthcare enterprise.  These solutions are proven to increase clinician satisfaction and HIT adoption, supporting organizations to achieve Meaningful Use of EHR systems and transform to the accountable care model.  Recognized as “Best-in-KLAS” 2004-2011 for Voice Recognition we invite you to learn more, http://www.nuance.com/for-healthcare/index.htm. 

Connect with Nuance Healthcare on:

For the Health of IT blog: http://nuancehealthcareblog.com/

Twitter: http://bit.ly/NuanceHCTwitter

Facebook: http://on.fb.me/NuanceHCfacebook

YouTube: http://bit.ly/NuanceHCYouTube

LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/NuanceHCLinkedIn

Source: Voicebrook

RAVENS have a bad reputation. Medieval monks, who liked to give names to everything (even things that did not need them), came up with “an unkindness” as the collective noun for these corvids. Blake Hannaford and his colleagues at the University of Washington, in Seattle, however, hope to change the impression engendered by the word. They are about to release a flock of medical robots with wing-like arms, called Ravens, in the hope of stimulating innovation in the nascent field of robotic surgery.

Robot-assisted surgery today is dominated by the da Vinci Surgical System, a device that scales down a surgeon’s hand movements to let him make tiny incisions. That leads to less tissue damage, and thus a quicker recovery for patients. Almost 2,000 da Vincis have been made, and they are used in about 200,000 operations a year around the world, most commonly hysterectomies and prostate removals.

But the da Vinci is far from perfect. It is immobile and weighs more than half a tonne, which limits its deployability, and it costs $1.8m, which puts it beyond the reach of all but the richest institutions. It also uses proprietary software. Even if researchers keen to experiment with new robotic technologies and treatments could afford one, they cannot tinker with da Vinci’s operating system.

None of that is true of the Raven. Originally developed for the American army by Dr Hannaford and Jacob Rosen of the University of California, Santa Cruz, as a prototype for robotic surgery on the battlefield, it is compact, light and cheap (relatively speaking) at around $250,000. More importantly for academics, it is also the first surgical robot to use open-source software. Its Linux-based operating system lets anyone modify and improve the original code, creating a way for researchers to experiment and collaborate.

Universities across America took delivery of the first brood of Ravens in February. At Harvard, Rob Howe and his team hope to use a Raven to operate on a beating heart, by automatically compensating for its motion. At the moment, heart surgery requires that the organ be stopped and then restarted. At the University of California, Los Angeles, meanwhile, Warren Grundfest is working on ways to give the robot a sense of touch that is communicated to the operator. Pieter Abbeel and Ken Goldberg at the University of California, Berkeley, will try teaching the robot to operate autonomously by mimicking surgeons. And Dr Rosen himself will work on ways to get human and robotic surgeons to work together.

Crucially, although individual laboratories will retain the rights to their own particular innovations, the results of these studies, and the improvements they suggest, will be stored in an online repository available to all. What happens after that is less certain. The research-oriented Raven has not yet been approved by American regulators, so all these investigations are, for the moment, restricted to operations on animals or human cadavers. And there is another, legal, problem. Intuitive Surgical, the company behind the da Vinci, holds patents that could make launching a commercial competitor tricky—at least in the immediate future.

Once those patents expire, however, the University of Washington could spin off the Raven into a start-up company. In the meantime, four more universities, including two outside America, have expressed an interest in buying one of the new robots. And even those without $250,000 to spare can participate in its development. The University of Washington is releasing a graphical simulation of the Raven that can be used to test its control system virtually. Dr Hannaford hopes that robotics researchers and amateurs will then help to find and fix bugs in the open-source code.

Link to story in The Economist

What’s your pain or pleasure?

The highly versatile MikroScan D2 whole slide scanner is touted as one of the most flexible instruments in the digital pathology communications market, and MikroScan wants a chance to prove it to you.

Help Shape the Future of Pathology Communications

MikroScan is requesting feedback directly from pathologists and researchers who know what they want in a slide scanner. What would you like to see at the MikroScan in-booth demo?

The company is requesting feedback from you directly. You can let them know in advance by clicking here.

Then you will have your chance to put them to the test live and in-person next week at USCAP.

Hands-on Demos at MikroScan Booth #638 at USCAP 2012

Bring your ideas and pain points and MikroScan will make it all better. MikroScan will be exhibiting in booth #638 at USCAP 2012 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The growing slide scanner manufacturer will provide hands-on product demonstrations of its small-footprint desktop whole slide imaging platform for digital pathology along with their viewing components.

New Developments Announced at the Show

The company will also be highlighting several new developments including:

• New cloud based service for slide image viewing, sharing and analysis
• Live remote consults of extremely high quality images from anywhere over the Internet
• New easy integrations with virtually all LIS platforms
• Improved “ATM-simple” intuitive user interface

Don’t miss this opportunity for a hands-on demo of the most versatile and affordable whole slide scanner.

Plus, check back and make sure to read the blog before USCAP kicks off for exclusive news concerning MikroScan.

New redesigned web viewer for Simagis Live clouds servers is now available. Among many design and usability improvements it features the following:

 

- Customizable branding

- Advanced annotations

- Dual image scale (pixels and physical units if available)

- Multi-touch support for viewing on Apple iOS devices such as iPad.

 

Live example: http://apps.simagis.com/live/public/7884b2cf-4dcf-4f52-94f0-62ee0f9185e0

 

This re-design effort is aimed to better serve the needs of imaging equipment manufacturers who include Simagis Live functionality under their own brand name in order to add cloud storage, web sharing and whole slide image analysis capabilities.

 

About Smart Imaging Technologies:

 

We provide cloud software, web applications and whole slide image analysis for Digital Pathology and Virtual Microscopy. To learn more visit http://web-pathology.net

If you follow Dilbert, I think you would agree the strip this year has been outstanding.

This one just made me think of more than a few people.  Perhaps you know some of these kind as well.

Source: http://www.dilbert.com/

DigiPath, Inc®, a provider of affordable, innovative and reliable digital pathology solutions, and Medica Corporation, a leading medical device designer and manufacturer with FDA and ISO compliant manufacturing facilities, have entered into a distribution agreement allowing DigiPath to assist their digital pathology customers in adopting EasyCell assistant, an affordable and FDA cleared digital hematology solution.

EasyCell assistant uses image-processing and pattern-recognition technology to automatically locate white cells on a blood smear, pre-classify the cells and then present them to a technician for review on an LCD display. EasyCell locates and pre-classifies normal white blood cells, smudge cells, NRBC’s and variant lymphocytes. Images of these cells are then displayed, grouped by cell type, for confirmatory review. 

“Our customers have been asking to augment their digital pathology deployments with automated hematology solutions,” said Eric Stoppenhagen, President of DigiPath,Inc.  “EasyCell assistant complements our existing affordable, innovative, and reliable solution portfolio.”

“DigiPath’s success in promoting digital pathology adoption will be extended by complementing their product offering with an affordable hematology solution.  I am delighted to have DigiPath as a distribution partner for EasyCell assistant,” stated Robert H. Hagopian, President of Medica Corporation.

About DigiPath, Inc.

DigiPath, Inc. provides the next generation of affordable, innovative, and reliable digital pathology solutions.  DigiPath’s advisors bring over 60 years combined expertise in pioneering digital pathology, implementing over 500 installations at community pathology practices, hospitals, academic medical centers, reference laboratories, biopharma organizations, and life science research institutions worldwide.

About Medica Corporation

For over 25 years, Medica has used its proprietary knowledge of sensor technology to manufacture a line of easy-to-use, easy-to-maintain, low-cost blood testing analyzers. Medica is actively engaged in the development of new technology to design future analyzers with the same ease-of-use. The Company’s rapid growth is a result of strategic focus on the worldwide need to lower healthcare costs.

SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT

This Press Release may contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. DigiPath has tried, whenever possible, to identify these forward-looking statements using words such as "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "plans," "intends," "potential" and similar expressions. These statements reflect DigiPath's current beliefs and are based upon information currently available to it. Accordingly, such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause DigiPath's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such statements. DigiPath undertakes no obligation to update or provide advice in the event of any change, addition or alteration to the information catered in this Press Release including such forward-looking statements.

This is a presentation by Cleopatra Kozlowski of Genentech at the Definiens Symposium in 2011 about using image analysis to score a mouse model of colitis. Much work has been done in the field of cancer biology and tumorigenesis but I think image analysis will prove increasingly important in non-neoplastic conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and neurodegenerative conditions. 

This video illustrates use of image analysis in IBD: