Proscia, a Baltimore-based startup, is looking to use machine learning and cloud-based technology to combat cancer, launching a new software platform aimed at pathologists that provides storage for multi-gigabyte digital biopsies, while simultaneously harnessing what it calls “second-opinion collaboration technology.”

The cloud-based program, according to Proscia, offers “large-scale management, analytics, access and collaboration” for whole slide images in digital pathology, all with secure access. The company, started in 2014 by David West Jr., is looking to sell the software to hospitals, academic research institutions, commercial pathology labs and pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

In essence, the idea is to quickly analyze a wide array of pathology images via a secure cloud, CEO and president West Jr. said.

“There are tens of millions of biopsies performed annually, analyzed solely by the human eye,” he said in a release. “This is archaic. We built a modern computing platform that will revolutionize the 150-year-old pathology workflow.”

The platform, he added, can help discover and process millions of critical data points that can help pathologists and other providers in diagnosing, treating and perhaps even prevent cancer.

The startup, born out of Johns Hopkins, said it has patent-pending technologies that combine multi-tenant cloud computing, image analysis and machine learning, coupled with proprietary algorithms that together add speed and intelligence to the current pathology field.

So far, all funding for the 10-person startup has been provided by David West Sr., father of the founder and CEO.

“We will be raising additional money later this spring,” West Sr. told MedCity News. “Interest level in Proscia is pretty strong.”

Such interest has come from researchers and pathologists, including Dr. George Lee, PH.D, from the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Lee is among a group of professionals who have tested Proscia’s technology, and his research centers specifically on training with pathologists to adopt machine-learning algorithms to study diseases like prostate cancer.

“In our lab, we must be able to share whole slide images with expert clinicians who annotate the slides,” said Dr. Lee. “I have worked with a number of interfaces in the past. Proscia’s platform has a sleek, intuitive interface that can handle large images smoothly.

Key features of the Proscia platform, its first official product, include:
— Secure storage, annotation and collaboration on multi-gigabyte digital biopsies
— High resolution, deep-zoom viewing
— Support for all leading whole slide scan formats, as well as static images
— Integration with third-party storage services, including Dropbox, AWS, and in-house storage systems
— Enhanced Dropbox integration that enables multi-terabyte image migration to the Proscia platform in seconds
— Tissue Microarray functionality

There is no cost to sign up and use of Proscia is free for up to 20GB of storage.

The company believes it has identified a significant niche within hospitals, according to Coleman Stavish, CTO and co-founder.

“We discovered many hospitals with IT infrastructures that were completely deficient in their ability to handle the memory burden required to store thousands, in many cases millions, of whole slide images,” he said in a statement. “It was critical to develop a state-of-the-art software solution with the ability to withstand the tremendous stresses of moving and storing medical information.”