This platform can screen cancer in less than two minutes. Focused on affordability, portability, and rural use, the doctors plan to partner with government and private entities to make cancer screening accessible to all.
Published Jan 04, 2025 | 7:00 AM ⚊ Updated Jan 04, 2025 | 7:00 AM
cancer screening prototype developed by Dr Narayan Subramaniam and Dr Hardik Pandey (Supplied)
Diagnosing cancer could take just two minutes instead of days, enabling patients in remote villages to access cutting-edge diagnostics without ever stepping into a hospital.
Two Bengaluru doctors– Dr Narayana Subramaniam, a head and neck surgical oncologist, and Dr Hardik Pandya, an engineer-scientist from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru, are making this vision a reality.
Their breakthrough platform, which recently won a grant of $2.4 million from the National Institutes of Health in the United States, promises to revolutionise cancer screening by combining affordability, portability, and the power of artificial intelligence.
Speaking to South First, Dr Narayana Subramaniam, hopeful of completing the protocol in five years, said that they are already in talks with central and a few state governments to try the cutting technology in state-run government hospitals and private hospitals too.
The duo’s innovative project aims to revolutionise cancer diagnostics, making it faster, cheaper, and more accessible.
Dr Subramanyam explains: “Traditional cancer screening methods often rely on biopsies, which involve multiple steps — processing the sample, pathology reviews, and significant turnaround times. These procedures can take days and require technical expertise, often unavailable in rural and underserved areas.”
To tackle this issue, the duo has developed a digital pathology platform.
The device, akin to a portable slide scanner, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse samples.
It identifies abnormal cells and generates a diagnosis within two minutes, even in remote locations. Remarkably, the system is projected to cost just one-tenth of current high-end slide scanners, making it a game-changer for mass cancer screenings.
“So, what we have been building for the last six to seven years is a platform that will make the diagnosis of cancer faster and cheaper. Right now, the issue with conventional screening techniques is that you have to do a biopsy. That biopsy has to be processed, it needs to be looked at by a pathologist, and all of those steps require a lot of expertise and time. It’s not generally done close to the patient. You have to go to a hospital or, even if someone comes to you for screening, the sample has to be sent somewhere to a lab to be processed. The turnaround time is significant and can take days, even when you’re quite efficient,” he says.
The National Institutes of Health awards these research grants for projects that are important at various levels of readiness.
This particular grant was an international grant focused on the use of technology in non-communicable diseases, one of which is cancer.
What has been developed is a digital pathology platform.
“When we make a slide, either for cytology (where we take only cells) or pathology (where we take a biopsy and slice it into thin cuts of tissue), a pathologist typically interprets the images to diagnose the underlying disorder— whether it’s cancer or not. Machines called slide scanners, which digitise these slides, have existed for some time,” explains Dr Narayan.
He explained that slide scanners function like document scanners, creating digital images that can be sent anywhere in the world for interpretation by an expert pathologist.
These machines, however, are very expensive.
The cheapest one costs about ₹30 lakh, while high-end ones cost upwards of ₹1 crore or more.
“Even in a city like Bangalore, only a handful of big hospitals own such equipment because of the cost,” the doctor explained.
The AI machine is a high-quality but low-cost machine that can perform the same functions.
“It is portable, which means we can take it to wherever the patient is. We can create the slide, digitise it, extract only the abnormal cells, and send the data remotely to a pathologist for interpretation. Using artificial intelligence, the system identifies abnormal cells, reducing the file size so it can run on mobile internet (3G or 4G). It can also triage large batches of screenings by highlighting the most suspicious cases for pathologists to review first. This saves time and effort,” says Dr Subramanyam.
The duo has received a grant of $2.4 million to build this workflow for oral cancer screening.
“This will allow us to screen efficiently and effectively at a population level, practically anywhere in the world. Once the system is built, we hope to expand it to other cancers because, at its core, it’s like a document scanner for cells. Whatever you put on the slide, you will be able to interpret,” the doctor said.
Dr Subramanyam explains that this prototype already has about 85 percent accuracy.
“We have five years to build an advanced prototype, evaluate it on 600 patients, and improve sensitivity and specificity to over 90%. Our goal is to commercialise it within five years.”
This includes standardising the hardware and obtaining certifications to make it market-ready.
Until then, it remains a science project.
“To make it accessible to those who need it most, we aim to partner with government and private entities,” he said.
“The advantages are clear. For one, it significantly reduces diagnostic time. Additionally, its portability and ability to work on mobile internet make it particularly useful in rural scenarios. We’ve reached out to some state and central government officials, and their preliminary response has been positive. We aim to incorporate their feedback during the testing and validation phase. The ultimate goal is to make affordable cancer screening available to everyone, especially those who otherwise couldn’t afford it,” Dr Subramayam says.
The doctor acknowledges the work of his team: “This project has been a collaborative effort. Over the past six to seven years, we’ve developed multiple prototypes, often bootstrapping with personal resources. Now, with this substantial grant, we have the resources to bring it to completion. The persistence of our team has brought us to this point, and we’re optimistic about the substantial impact this innovation can have,” he said.
(Edited by Rosamma Thomas).
