Research lab opens in India focused on deep learning

Medical equipment manufacturer Wipro GE Healthcare has partnered with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to open a research lab. 

The lab is located at the Department of Computational and Data Sciences (CDS) in Bangalore. It will specialise in healthcare diagnostics, deep learning technology, ML and AI systems. Work will also be done on digital interfaces to produce sophisticated diagnostic and medical image reconstruction techniques. 

This research unit will involve around fifty students and three faculty members of IISc to begin with. They will work closely with clinicians as well as Wipro GE Healthcare to integrate computational models into clinical workflows, to help doctors improve patient outcomes.

The partners are aiming for this collaboration between the worlds of industry and academia to solve some of the toughest challenges healthcare faces, using artificial intelligence and machine learning. One of their work streams will be exploring deep learning models to analyse lung lesions caused by COVID-19 via ultrasound and CT images. 

Additionally they will apply deep learning models to improve opthalmology imaging, and medical image reconstruction methods. 

The IISc was established in 1909 through a partnership between founder of the Tata group Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the Maharaja of Mysore, and the Government of India. Over the 111 years since its establishment, IISc has become a major institution for advanced scientific and technological research and education in India. 

Wipro GE Healthcare is supporting the research lab with a grant as part of its CSR efforts. This funding will be used to equip the lab with the necessary hardware and software. This includes state-of-the-art deep learning servers and an advanced visualization platform. 

Commenting on the collaboration, Dileep Mangsuli, Chief Technology Officer at GE Healthcare South Asia said: “The world's healthcare is transforming through use of digital technologies which can enable precision health. This transformation can be accelerated by building a collaborative ecosystem of industry and academia partners. 

"This Healthcare Innovation Lab at IISc will help bring to market unique digital solutions which will get integrated into our Edison platform and intelligent devices, helping clinicians solve some of the toughest healthcare challenges.”

Prof. Phaneendra Yalavarthy, convener of the lab as well as the Chair of the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs at IISc, said: “Private-Public partnership is in the DNA of IISc and this collaborative lab in the space of artificial intelligence in healthcare funded by Wipro GE Healthcare is timely, given the push for digital technologies. 

"Translation of the research work carried out in the lab into the clinic will be the priority, and there is no better industry partner in India than Wipro GE Healthcare that can accelerate this. This is only the beginning of the collaboration and we are hoping to scale up the research activities in the near future.”