Meet the team

This project was created by a research team working at the intersection of digital pathology, artificial intelligence, histology, and cancer research. Our goal is to improve tissue annotations in adipose histology images and use these data to support biomarker discovery in diseases such as cancer.

Our team

Mario Parreno Centeno, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher Data4Health MSCA COFUND Programme
Research Unit of Translational Medicine
Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu

Mario is developing this project as part of his research in digital pathology and artificial intelligence. His work focuses on improving tissue annotation and image analysis workflows to study adipose tissue morphology and its potential value for biomarker discovery.

Juha Väyrynen, MD, PhD

Professor Cancer Biology and Pathology
Research Unit of Translational Medicine
Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu

Juha Väyrynen contributes expertise in pathology, cancer biology, and translational research. His work helps connect tissue morphology with clinically meaningful questions in cancer research.

Sanna Palosaari, PhD

Docent Cell Biology and Histology
Research Unit of Translational Medicine
Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu

Sanna Palosaari contributes expertise in cell biology and histology. Her role helps ensure that the biological interpretation of tissue structures is accurate and meaningful.

Sanna Palosaari, PhD

Docent Cell Biology and Histology
Research Unit of Translational Medicine
Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu

Sanna Palosaari contributes expertise in cell biology and histology. Her role helps ensure that the biological interpretation of tissue structures is accurate and meaningful.

Vignesh Rajendiran, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher Data4Health MSCA COFUND Programme
Research Unit of Clinical Medicine
Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu

Hina Ishtiaq, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher Data4Health MSCA COFUND Programme
Research Unit of Clinical Medicine
Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu

Xènia Redondo Díaz

Docent Biology and Geology
Institut de Camarles, Tarragona, Spain

Why we built this project

Adipose tissue is easy to see in many histology images, but it is still difficult to analyze automatically. Thin tissue walls may appear broken or incomplete during tissue preparation, which can lead AI models to make errors.

We created this project to combine artificial intelligence with human review. By working together, researchers and volunteers can help create better annotations, improve model performance, and support the study of adipose tissue as a source of new biomarkers.

Thank you

We are grateful to everyone who contributes to this project. Each annotation helps us build higher-quality research data and brings us closer to better understanding disease through tissue images.

Acknowledgement

This research study is co-funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions grant agreement No. 101126602 (Data4Healthcare), and the University of Oulu.

The researchers wish to acknowledge CSC – IT Center for Science, Finland, and the LUMI consortium for generous computational resources and support [5.2, 5.11].