Cancer pathology revealed with the aid of statistics

Dr. Artur Mezheyeuski is a pathologist at Uppsala University, a founder of HistoOne AB, and a senior researcher involved in several cancer research groups. Genevia Technologies helped Dr. Mezheyeuski in coming up with a new approach to applying thresholding in multiplex immunofluorescence data.

Multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) technologies allow the simultaneous detection of multiple markers and cell type composition on a single tissue section. According to Dr. Mezheyeuski, statistical modeling was crucial for their cancer research project:

– One of the major challenges in our project was defining the marker (co)expression thresholds to be used for cell classification: i.e. to be able to classify a cell as, for example, CD4 or Treg, etc. As there are no off-the-shelf methods for this, we needed an expert in computational biology to create one.

– After involving Genevia Technologies in our research, we were able to move forward with our project.

The good word has been spreading

Dr. Mezheyeuski says that Genevia Technologies is not an unfamiliar name amongst the researchers in Swedish universities, and many of his fellow researchers have recommended their services.

– I am involved in the projects of several research groups, and many of those already utilize Genevia’s services. When I first heard about Genevia from a colleague, I got interested but did not need bioinformatics support myself at that time. But when the need arose, I chose Genevia Technologies based on the recommendations I had received.

The collaboration proceeded well, and Genevia’s bioinformaticians provided the required help. Dr. Artur Mezheyeuski says he has now been the one recommending Genevia Technologies to others:

– Now, since the thresholding issue has been overcome, we are focusing on the data analysis work that we can do ourselves. But it is easy to get help from Genevia for those analysis needs that we do not have resources for. Sure, it comes with a price tag, but finding a decent bioinformatician is like looking for a needle in a haystack, and hiring new employees is not cheap either.

– In my opinion, for small and medium-sized groups that do not have bioinformaticians in their teams, this is the easiest, and eventually cheapest, way to access competent bioinformatics support.

An on-demand team that speaks the same language

Sometimes the worlds of biology and mathematics may be difficult to combine, but Dr. Mezheyeuski says that with Genevia Technologies, that is not the case.

– Even if a biologist or physician does not speak mathematics, Genevia’s professionals do speak biology. Hence, there is always a common ground for communication.

– The other best features in collaborating with Genevia are the professionalism of their team and the team members’ diversity. We had very specific requirements for the project that Genevia was not familiar with, but they could choose the best professionals from their team and get the work done.

– In my experience, Genevia provides high-quality stand-by services, and their expertise is easy to harness when needed.