
Development of a Telepathology framework
PI: Prof. Santosh Noronha, Department of Chemical Engineering
Tata Fellow: Alwin Thomas (2019-21)
We are developing an ecosystem for training pathologists in remote locations to facilitate communication between rural and urban laboratories. This web-based application lets a senior pathologist hold a training session without gathering all students in one place. Sample cases used in training sessions are usually in the form of slides scanned by a senior pathologist. He can now upload multiple sample cases and assignments online on the web application, letting the students read and solve the questionnaire at their convenience of space and time. The unique feature of being able to zoom in and out, and annotate the image files at maximum resolution, gives a better learning experience for the student as compared to the traditional multi-eyepiece microscope training sessions. Further, the web-based application can be used to share and discuss complicated cases between different pathologists for second opinion. Currently, slides are transferred physically, adding time and causing some level of physical damage of sample. Henceforth, a scanned image of the sample can be uploaded on the server using the web application. This will enable the pathologist to share it with multiple pathologists at the same time, have more comprehensive discussion on the case in hand and encourage faster diagnosis for the patient.
