Welcoming Malin and Martine: New MedTech Interns at PiV

Hello, we are Malin and Martine, and we are currently in our third year of the Medical Technology (MTEK) program at the University of Bergen. We are excited to be completing our internship here at PiV, where we will be staying until the end of the year.

Our work builds on a project started by previous MTEK students. The goal of the project is to develop an automated quality control system for immunohistochemical staining in digital pathology. Last year, the students developed a classifier that categorizes cells into three groups: positive, negative and other. This spring, two more students made further progress by analyzing the classifier’s result and developing ways to visualize the data.

Initially, one of the main challenges was getting familiar with the work done by previous MTEK students, trying to gain an overview of the project, and learning new software, such as Qupath. We have only had two introductory courses related to programming so far in our studies, which has made it a bit of a challenging task. Fortunately, we are receiving help and guidance and feel that we have made a good start.

If successful, the project will reduce the workload of pathologists and biomedical laboratory scientists by minimizing the need for manual quality control while also improving the overall image quality.

Our current focus is on analyzing the data collected by previous students and exploring different approaches to interpreting the results. We aim to establish a threshold or a measurable indicator that can determine whether an image shows good staining quality or suffers from poor staining. Weekly meetings with Sabine, Hrafn and Mari have been very helpful, as they provide us with clearer direction and answer any questions we may have.

To summarize, we find the project both interesting and educational. We are very grateful to be a part of this group and look forward to continuing our work here at PiV throughout the rest of the year.