Open-source software program receives critical funding

Faculty of Arts and Science researcher Gabor Fichtinger and his team have been awarded, in collaboration with Harvard Medical School, a third grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) in support of their ongoing efforts in the theme of AI in Global Health.

CZI’s main focus is solving some of society’s toughest challenges – from eradicating disease to improving education and addressing the needs of our local communities.

The $400,000 US grant by the Wellcome Trust through CZI is earmarked for the project 3D Slicer for African Scientists: Enabling AI for Health. Dr. Fichtinger (School of Computing) explains the project is part of their Essential Open Source Software for Science program, a program designed to support software maintenance, growth, development, and community engagement for these critical tools.

3D Slicer is a free open-source software platform for medical imaging data analysis, 3D visualization, and image-guided therapy used in clinical research, education and commercial products worldwide, through nearly seven million downloads from all continents, including even Antarctica. However, the platform is only available in English.

“This is part of a larger program, our third grant from CZI for global health efforts,” Dr. Fichtinger, Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Computer-Integrated Surgery, explains. “The first one was for Africa, second for Latin America, and this one for Africa again. Queen’s is co-leading; we are running these grants through Harvard University with Dr. Sonia Pujol. Our larger mission is to provide free-source software resources for the global community.”

Dr. Fichtinger says the digital health research partnerships, such as what they have in countries of sub-Saharan West Africa, create a unique joint invention space and opportunities for co-creation which is fundamentally different from the medical technology research in Canada and the United States.

“Digital health inventions in sub-Saharan West Africa are driven by pressing needs and dire shortages, with huge space for rapid translational impact. For example, in Senegal our partners have recently run a clinical trial on the clinical effectiveness of digital anatomy models they generated with the 3D Slicer software, involving nearly 400 patients and 50 physicians in half a dozen hospitals across the country in less than four months. Such a magnitude and swiftness of clinical translation is impossible to achieve anywhere in so called ‘Western medicine’.”

He adds the success of the 3D Slicer project “reinforces the belief that while health technology developers need to maintain a pragmatic perspective, they should be urged to critique strictly materialistic and financially centered approaches. For digital health technologies to make a true societal impact, they must cater to those who can the least afford it, and free open-source software resources might help bring this ideal a bit closer.”

Dr. Fichtinger is also the director of the PERK Lab, the Laboratory for Percutaneous Surgery, where much of this research is taking place. The lab focuses on the development of enabling technology for image-guided percutaneous and intra-cavity procedures.

Learn more about CZI on the website.