NPIC: National Pathology Imaging Co-Operative

“病理学家是诊断疾病的医生。为此，我们使用显微镜检查样本（“活组织检查”），以确定样本是否显示癌症，以及它是什么类型的癌症。新的扫描仪使我们能够创建显微镜载玻片的数字图像，这样我们就可以在电脑上查看它们，并更容易地在医院之间共享它们。这被称为“数字病理学”——它将是我们诊断癌症方式的一场革命。但是数字图像让我们更进一步——用电脑来帮助我们看图像。“**人工智能**”（AI）是一种允许计算机进行模式识别的计算机技术。人工智能可以被训练来识别疾病的模式，例如在大样本中搜索小范围的癌症。因此，病理学家将能够使用人工智能更快、更好、更低成本地诊断癌症。为了工作，人工智能需要“学习”模式，通过观察大量图像并从中学习，就像人类一样。但是没有大量的数字图像可以用于此。在这个项目中，北方病理成像合作社（NPIC），我们将NHS、工业界和科学家聚集在一起来解决这个问题。我们将在北部12家NHS医院安装扫描仪，收集数字病理图像，训练人工智能系统。这将产生大量的数据——到项目结束时，每年将产生约76万张图像，约为1.2 pb。然后，我们将与工业界和科学家合作，开发新的人工智能系统来分析我们的图像，并做出更好的诊断。这是英国在这个新领域发挥领导作用的大好机会。因为这是一个有共同目标的合作组织，由医生领导，这个项目将确保人工智能系统是安全的，医生和NHS将控制它们的使用方式。同样重要的是，我们需要确保公众理解我们在做什么，并相信我们正在正确、安全地使用NHS数据——这将是我们项目的重要组成部分。我们希望在项目结束时，我们能用这笔资金创造出世界领先的东西。我们希望开发最好的系统来收集和使用数据来构建人工智能系统，为NHS和患者带来价值。”

"Pathologists are the **doctors who diagnose disease**. To do this, we examine samples (""biopsies"") using a microscope, to decide if a sample shows cancer, and what type of cancer it is. New scanners allow us to create digital images of microscope slides, so we can look at them on computers, and share them between hospitals more easily. This is called **digital pathology** - it will be a revolution in how we diagnose cancer. But digital images allow us to go one step further - to use computers to help us look at the images. ""**Artificial intelligence**"" (AI) is a computer technology which allows computers to do pattern recognition. AI can be trained to recognise the patterns of disease - for example searching for small areas of cancer in a large sample. So pathologists will be able to use AI to diagnose cancer faster, better and at lower cost. To work, AI needs to ""learn"" the patterns by looking at large numbers of images and learn from them, like a human would. But there are no large collections of digital images that can be used for this. In this project, the **Northern Pathology Imaging Co-operative (NPIC)**, we are bringing together the NHS, industry and scientists to solve this problem. We will put scanners in 12 Northern NHS hospitals to gather digital pathology images training AI systems. This will generate a lot of data - about 760,000 images per year by the end of the project, which is about 1.2 Petabytes. We will then work with industry and scientists to make new AI systems to analyse our images and make better diagnoses. This is a big opportunity for the UK to lead in this new area. Because it is a **co-operative with a shared goal, led by doctors**, this project will ensure that AI systems are safe, and that doctors and the NHS are in control of how they are used. Just as important, we need to ensure the public understand what we are doing and trust that we are using NHS data properly and securely - this will be an important part of our project. We hope that by the end of our project, we have used the funding to create something that is world leading. We want to develop the best systems for gathering and using data to make AI systems, bringing value for the NHS and patients."