WINDBER — Spy technology and an Eastern philosophical approach to research are coming together to advance medical science.
Windber Research Institute has added Shanghai Center for Bioinformation Technology and U.S. government intelligence contractor Concentia Digital to its list of international collaborators.
Concentia’s software – which allows American agents to pick out images of possible terrorist camps – is being adapted to analyze X-rays, ultrasound video and tissue slides of individual patients.
And an information swap is being arranged with Shanghai.
The Shanghai center is one of China’s leading research institutes, with many of the same techniques that Windber uses to analyze human genes and the proteins they produce, Executive Director Michael Liebman said from Windber Research Institute.
“It is a scientific exchange,” Liebman said. “Two of our scientists, Hai Hu and I, will go to China and work with some professors there. Their scientists will come here to work with both institutes.”
Shanghai wants to learn more about Windber’s research approach.
The idea is to start by working with doctors and hospitals to identify issues, then take those issues to the lab for answers and bring the results back to the patient’s bedside.
Windber will be able to expand its studies through patient data Shanghai collects from the population of China, Liebman said.
In addition, Liebman said, local scientists want to learn more about how China’s scientists approach problem solving.
“The Eastern model is a broader interpretation of concepts than strictly following specific rules,” Liebman said.
The Eastern approach will be expanded through technology originally designed for the government intelligence work, Liebman said.
Concentia Digital of Columbia, Md., developed software to sort through the caches of still images and video for select pictures based on specific typed questions, Liebman said.
The technology ties into Windber’s growing focus on digital information storage, said F. Nicholas Jacobs, president of both Windber Research Institute and Windber Medical Center.
Windber hopes to market its ability to store medical information for other hospitals and universities, while making it instantly retrievable through previously installed high-speed fiber optic lines.
“What we have been building at the research institute is a comprehensive data repository,” Jacobs said. “What we did not have was software to make it available to the scientists and researchers around the world.”
Windber’s information technology is also perfecting ways to combine a single patient’s various medical images – X-rays, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging and others – onto a single computer screen for analysis and diagnostics, Liebman said.
“We will use it in our research to integrate data for a patient model of all the digital information,” Liebman said. “It gives the complete picture of the patient over the entire medical history.”
A preview of the technology will be presented at Showcase for Commerce next week, using two-layer computer monitors adapted by DRS Laurel Technologies of Richland – another of Windber’s new partners.
Randy Griffith can be reached at 532-5057 or rgriffith@tribdem.com.
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