Alpenglow Biosciences awarded $1.6M grant to develop AI-enabled smart microscopy and 3D database of cancer biopsies

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Aug 01, 2023, 09:00 ET

Alpenglow is an inaugural recipient of Andy Hill grant, Washington's Cancer Research Endowment (CARE) fund to create AI-enabled 3D spatial biology of cancer biopsies
Aims of the grant include developing a 3D database of prostate biopsies, automating segmentation and quantification of key structures including cancer cells and vessels, and developing smart microscopy techniques for automated detection of regions of interest using edge computing powered by NVIDIA
3D spatial biology imaging will be completed in collaboration with CorePlus, a leading pathology lab in Puerto Rico for the inclusion of diverse populations in algorithmic training to minimize racial bias in algorithm development

SEATTLE, Aug. 1, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Alpenglow Biosciences has been awarded a $1.6M grant to develop artificial intelligence (AI) enabled smart microscopy using its patented multi-resolution 3Di platform for 3D spatial biology. In collaboration with CorePlus, a leading pathology laboratory in Puerto Rico and early adopter of AI-enabled digital pathology and Alpenglow's 3Di platform, the two partners will build upon previous work to leverage AI and 3D spatial biology to advance the field of pathology from 2D and qualitative to 3D and quantitative.

"We are excited to continue to lead the field of 3D spatial biology and develop smart microscopy solutions to address cancer with this latest award," said Dr. Nicholas Reder, MD, MPH and CEO of Alpenglow Biosciences. Alpenglow will use the award to further develop its smart microscopy platform which leverages its multi-resolution open top light sheet microscope. Currently, the workflow for selection of regions of interest is manual and must take place after the data has been processed. With this grant, Alpenglow will develop solutions for rapid processing of large microscopy datasets which can be a terabyte in size or larger, and identify regions of interest across vast volumes using AI for higher sub-micron resolution imaging and additional quantitative analysis.

To build next-generation imaging technology powered by AI, Alpenglow is incorporating NVIDIA Holoscan, a leading platform for building medical devices that will enable AI edge computing on 3Di. Alpenglow will also use NVIDIA IGX, an industrial-grade edge AI hardware platform, to run with 3Di. As a member of the NVIDIA Inception program for cutting-edge startups, Alpenglow is working closely with the NVIDIA healthcare team to leverage Alpenglow's GPU-accelerated image processing pipeline and implement rapid image processing on terabyte-sized datasets to allow for automated region of interest detection. Alpenglow aims to accelerate traditional pathology workflows which can take days to weeks and deliver results in just hours using the entire tissue sample.

"We look forward to supporting Alpenglow's AI-enabled smart microscopy platform powered by NVIDIA technology to bring a first-of-its-kind device to market, accelerating healthcare research and discovery," said Renee Yao, global healthcare AI startups lead at NVIDIA.

Pathology and tissue analysis is ripe for innovation. Drug developers and clinicians currently rely on centuries-old processes to answer increasingly difficult questions like diagnosing a patient's disease, quantifying biomarkers, and predicting response to novel therapies. Other companies have approached the problem by digitizing specimens and adding more markers on a single slide but still run into the issue of less than 1% of tissue specimens being analyzed and an inability to capture complex architectures and intercellular distributions which can only be visualized in three dimensions. Alpenglow's 3D spatial biology platform can digitize entire tissue specimens rapidly, non-destructively, and provide AI-enabled quantitative analysis to answer key questions posed by clinicians and drug developers with higher accuracy and greater certainty.

"Our team is thrilled to be advancing the transformation in pathology to incorporate 3D technology taking into consideration the inclusion of Hispanics to minimize racial bias in algorithm development," said Mariano de Socarraz, Founder and CEO at CorePlus. CorePlus was the first laboratory in the Americas to operationalize AI in prostate cancer. As part of the collaboration, CorePlus will be annotating 3D prostate biopsy images to train AI models to recognize key tissue structures including cancer cells, immune cells, and vessels. This work will be overseen and led by Juan Carlos Santa-Rosario, MD and Chief Medical Officer at CorePlus.

"Our collaboration with Alpenglow Biosciences to further develop rapid and high throughput AI-enabled 3D imaging of entire cancer biopsies will provide pathologists with unprecedented tools to improve precision in cancer diagnostics," said Santa-Rosario. 3D imaging generates vastly more data than traditional slide-based techniques by digitizing entire biopsy specimens rather than a single slice. AI and machine learning algorithms are crucial to help quantify biomarkers of interest and identify areas for closer pathologist review. The grant aims to automate selection of regions of interest in a tissue which warrant additional investigation and could eventually be useful for diagnosis or predict response to novel therapies. Currently, Alpenglow's 3Di platform is available for research use only.

"The future of pathology is 3D. We continue to develop our technology by incorporating the latest developments in AI and support the growth of the Washington innovation ecosystem enabled by programs like the Andy Hill CARE grant," said Reder. "Alpenglow is poised to break the antiquated glass slide paradigm of pathology and usher in 3D spatial biology."

About Alpenglow Biosciences

Alpenglow Biosciences is a venture-backed company focused on accelerating drug development and improving clinical diagnostics with AI-enabled 3D imaging technology. Their 3D spatial biology platform solution provides new spatial biology insights with greater accuracy by non-destructively digitizing entire tissues. Alpenglow partners with pharmaceutical companies to bring better therapeutics to market faster through greater understanding of mechanism of action, efficacy & toxicology, and patient trial enrollment using their patented platform. Five of the top 10 pharma companies already work with Alpenglow to accelerate development timelines, save costs, gain new insights, and improve therapeutic success. See what you've been missing at alpenglowbiosciences.com.

About CorePlus

CorePlus is a high complexity CLIA certified laboratory with facilities in Carolina and Ponce, Puerto Rico. The CorePlus team of Board-certified pathologists and scientists became the first in the US and the Americas to implement digital pathology-based AI for primary diagnosis and are developing 3D imaging protocols in a CLIA-setting utilizing Alpenglow's 3Deep Imager solution.

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SOURCE Alpenglow Biosciences