Patent Number 10,839,512 Issued for New Tissue Sample Image Dot Detection Method
Westminster, CO – February 17, 2021 – Flagship Biosciences, the leader in data-centric pathology tissue analysis, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued Flagship a new patent, number 10,839,512 entitled “Method of dot detection within images of tissue samples.” The patent, one of several recent patents issued to Flagship, discloses a method to identify CISH (chromogenic in situ hybridization) and FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) dots on a tissue slide, as well as very small stained particles such as bacteria. The patented method improves over previous state-of-the-art machine learning approaches and classical image processing methods to produce better results, provide easier adjustment for different applications, and potentially reduce costs.
“We are pleased to announce this new patent for CISH and FISH dot detection,” said Trevor Johnson, Flagship’s CEO. “Our internal experiments show that our new method can identify and separate dots, especially if they are very close together, better than any previous method. Flagship’s new dot detection method is also much less sensitive to chromatic aberrations. Combined with sensitivity and noise robustness, this method should produce fewer false detections and fewer missed dot pairs. The method can also reduce the need for more sophisticated optical equipment. We’re excited to share the benefits of the method with our clients.”
Flagship notes that only three parameters are needed to tune the method, whereas state-of-the-art classical dot detection methods have many more parameters to tune through trial and error, leading to higher variations of performance. The Flagship patent is written to cover the use of the new dot detection method exclusively in images of tissue sections. Flagship explicitly allows its use in other applications such as cell cultures, radiology, and even astronomy, all of which can benefit from a better dot detection algorithm.
Flagship has also been granted two other recent patents:
- US Patent 10,504,224, “Method for detecting immunostaining below the threshold of visual perception,” granted in December of 2019, discloses a method to precisely quantify staining on a slide that cannot be identified visually. The difficulty of such staining is that the pathologist is still the ground truth for verifying that the algorithm did the right thing, and if the pathologist cannot see the staining, they cannot verify the algorithm’s results.
- US Patent 10,424,061, “Method for assigning tissue normalization factors for digital image analysis,” granted in September of 2019, discloses how to normalize biomarker expression by the area of tissue occupied by the relevant type of cell or tissue region.
About Flagship Biosciences
Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Westminster, Colorado, Flagship Biosciences, Inc. is a technology-driven tissue analysis services company delivering the most accurate and informative data available. We are revolutionizing tissue analysis to improve drug development and diagnostics using the power of AI with a consultative approach. Our services and technology dramatically improve on the data and interpretation from traditional pathology methods, eliminating variability associated with typical tissue assessments, and bringing new insights to tissue analysis results. We provide expert scientific consultation for every client. Our team interprets results, contextualizes tissue biology, and identifies the best course for success. flagshipbio.com
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