131: USCAP 2025 DAILY UPDATE | DAY 4

USCAP 2025 Daily Update – Day 4 with Dr. Aleksandra Zuraw

It’s the final day of USCAP 2025, and in this episode of the Digital Pathology Podcast, I’m sharing personal moments, spontaneous tech wins (and fails), and meaningful conversations with some of the most forward-thinking voices in digital pathology.

From running around with mics and misplaced tripods to interviewing Dr. Dry and Dr. Ozumura, this episode captures both the spirit of innovation and the real-world challenges of advancing digital workflows—especially in environments where regulations still lag behind.

🔬 Key Topics Covered:

• [00:00:00] Morning mishaps, behind-the-scenes livestream chaos
• [00:02:00] Meeting international listeners and the Korean heart selfie tip 💙
• [00:03:00] MUSE Booth podcast recordings with Dr. Dry (UCLA)
• [00:05:00] Change management, leadership, and building digital culture
• [00:06:00] Dr. Ozumura's dual-mode pathology workflow in Japan
• [00:08:00] Digital pathology for remote areas and island-based diagnostics
• [00:10:00] What's new at vendor booths? Launching a vendor highlight roundup
• [00:12:00] Interoperability, collaboration, and the growing presence of digital
• [00:14:00] Reflections on the final day, networking, and the future of pathology

🩺 Why This Episode Matters:
Digital pathology is no longer an add-on—it’s the foundation of future workflows. Day 4 at USCAP showed how global leaders, industry partners, and early adopters are all rallying behind the need for interoperability, real-time imaging, and inclusive innovation. Whether it’s Japan’s regulatory balancing act or the power of leadership at institutions like UCLA, this episode is packed with perspective.

🎧 Listen now and close out USCAP 2025 with insights, laughs, and inspiration.

Transcript

USCAP 2025 DAILY UPDATE DAY 4

Aleks: [00:00:00] Good morning. My digital pathology trailblazers. Good morning from USCAP last day of the conference. Actually, I scheduled the livestream for tomorrow as well, but I'm like, there's not gonna be anybody here tomorrow, so I might as well cancel. 

Intro: Learn about the newest digital pathology trends in science and industry.  Meet the most interesting people in the niche, and gain insights relevant to your own projects. Here is where pathology meets computer science. You are listening to the Digital Pathology Podcast with your host, Dr. Aleksandra Zuraw

Aleks: I'm gonna tell you about a few of my adventures today that I had before 7:00 AM a little adventurous.

So first I go to the FedEx office because I had to print something and the person at the FedEx office says, oh, there is a printer 24 hours. So of course, what does Alex do? What does Alex not do? Check what she needs to print for from the printer. So I, everything ready for the live stream. Half [00:01:00] an hour I'm gonna make it, no problem.

And I go there. And the options are USB, which I don't have Dropbox, which I don't remember the password. The one drive, I don't remember the password and whatever. There was nothing. I stood there 10 minutes and didn't figure it out, so I'll have to go back to the FedEx office, and then I take my camera and like vlogging, oh, I went and it didn't work and it's on me because I didn't come prepared.

And then I also left at tripod at the one booth that I was recording. And I only have two now. One is for the lights and then I look for the second one. I'm like, shoot, it's not there, but I found it. So anyway, I'm gonna give you a quick update on what I did yesterday, and you can tell me what you did yesterday at this conference.

In the comments, gimme some comments. If you are watching, you will know and comment what that is. But I'll tell you, Korean [00:02:00] heart even know they do hearts like this now. Now instead of. Or maybe it's Asian heart as well. So what I'm doing, I'm crossing two fingers. It's maybe everybody knows that now. I need to know because selfies you need to do it is Korean heart.

And how do they know? Because two digital pathology trailblazers from Korea came to the booth yesterday and they read the book and they were, it is just so nice to hear from you and I love hearing from you in the comments. That's why I'm super excited when you guys are commenting and you're interacting with me.

But because I was here at the booth, I had a few people who came and said, oh, I read your book and you make it fun. And I'm like, I don't think I'm so funny. But I guess any level of entertainment in pathology is more than is above the baseline. But anyways, they showed me Korean heart. They also were so happy that I provide this information.

But what I told them, [00:03:00] it works both ways. If there weren't any people who are interested in this, like what would be the point of doing this? No point. And I keep hearing people, some of them might may be brushing teeth right now and getting ready for the conference. So yeah, I was doing some recordings and then I always, so I have these clip, clip on microphones and I have two of them.

There's another one and I always clip the other one to the other person and what do I do? Then I leave it with this person. So I always go back, go to an I recordings and I'm like, oh, lemme go back to the Bridges booth. 'cause I left my microphone there and so that happened yesterday as well. Other than that, we had two very interesting podcasts at the MUSE Booth.

So they are a sponsor of a series of podcasts with key opinion leaders. Those podcasts are a little different than the usual ones. The usual ones are a little longer, more like scripted or have questions that I prepare here. No, we're basically engaging with the key [00:04:00] opinion leaders and asking them, Hey.

Would you be able to tell us what's your engagement in digital pathology and how do you see the MUSE technology fitting into the new digital pathology workflow? So I had the honor to interview Dr. Dry, who is the boss of Dr. Rao. Dr. Rao is the presenter from the MUSE Panel. He's also at the Professor of Innovation, like he has a special title to deal with innovation at UCLA.

And I had the honor to introdu… interview his boss, who basically gives him a lot of freedom and she's a strong leader, has a street strong leadership personality, very no nonsense to the point, but also this gentle side of, okay, if you have good people, let them do what they do well. And she has Dr. Rao and he always has been. Interested [00:05:00]  in new technologies. Then he brings this to the table where she says this, she and she is like super advanced when it comes to the future of pathology. So that's gonna be on the podcast. I don't wanna reveal too much. So Dr. Dry was a fantastic person to interview.

She has a vision that is a vision of the future, but she also has an approach. To change management, to implementing things in an institution, to getting people on board, not forcing this down anybody's throat, but like engaging. And we talked about that and about a few more things and that was an interesting thing.

Another podcast that I had was with Dr. Ozumura from Japan. And honestly, I have no idea about how life in Japan looks. I actually talked to a friend, a fellow pathologist whose wife is in Japan. He gave me like a five minute [00:06:00] insider inside. But anyway, why am I saying this? Because we know so what we know, and then we have no idea about the stuff that we don't know, including, countries including workflows including the culture opinion. And I like to think of myself as somebody who traveled a lot and seen a lot in all US is the sixth country where I have lived and worked. But then you talk to somebody who's from there and you realize you have no idea. So something that I learned is that, so he introduced digital pathology and in, in his hospital.

He's telling me, oh no, our pathologists are reading digital and it's good for a consultation and all the different digital pathology advantages, but we also have the microscopes and the glass. And I'm like, why would you do that? I didn't like, I was not aggressive with my questions, but that was something [00:07:00] that surprised me.

And I came back to this question. He says, yes, this is what the regulators require and we hope is gonna change and we're working on changing this, but, super calm, super patient. And what I admire about him in an environment where you still, and they do the classical digital pathology.

And of course we talked about MUSE and how this would make life. Different, especially for the remote areas in Japan. And Japan is an islands. So that's like another challenge, logistical challenge for pathology. So right. If you would have direct to digital pathology imaging somewhere at place where there are no pathologists, then that would solve a lot of problems.

But what I respected so much about him is the level of enthusiasm about digital pathology, like the level of. Commitment, how convinced you are [00:08:00] that this is the way to go. And he's of course a member of the Asian Society of Digital Pathology Tool. Introduce it in your institution when you know you will have to do both modalities in parallel.

So great respect for believing in the technology so much. And yeah, so we talked about that. About a few different things and let's see if I can get a few more key opinion leaders here to the booth and have some other meaningful conversations. You're gonna be having this on the podcast you already have if you miss the live streams from MUSE Booth or wherever I was doing those live streams, they're already on the podcast, so you can just listen to them on the podcast, meaning the audio podcast as well.

I don't think we have the show notes ready and it's not polished, but I thought I will put them out. ASAP so that it is super timely. The other things that need editing will need some editing. So sometimes [00:09:00] things go out fast. The stuff I do on social media that I can do real time goes off out fast.

So there is an unofficial competition for the best swag at this conference andTechcyte with their socks is pretty high on the list. So there is a post on LinkedIn. Where I have a video of those histology socks. If you have some cool swag and I know there, I need to post the MUSE pin as well to just to enter the competition.

I have to say there are a couple of innovative things here, so whoever wants to enter the competition, do the picture. Even from your booth, if you're a vendor, that's okay as well. I will. Be running around and showing this post so that you guys can take part in this competition, post the little picture of the swag that you have.

Oh, there was an impressive thing at Merck Booth. You can take a photo of your face and have it on cappuccino coffee, like I need to do that. I need to enter them into the competitions.  [00:10:00] They're not listenening to this live stream. And anything else that they, oh, so Georgia, a digital pathology trailblazer from Roche where I was recording yesterday.

What did I leave there? Yeah, the microphone. But I picked it up. She had a fantastic idea and let's see if I can execute on this. She said, Hey, can you like go to all the digital pathology and AI vendors and just ask them what's new? What is their goal for this conference? What do they have? What do they show?

Because I would love to know, but I have to be at my booth, so I cannot do that. And I thought it was a fantastic idea. So that's my plan for today. Not the agenda, but I think I can do it. So whenever the vendors start coming here, they. I think the participants can come at nine, so maybe the vendors are gonna be here at 8:30, so I can start doing my walk and just give you like a two sentence update from everybody.

What's new? What are you [00:11:00]  trying to show to the digital pathology trailblazers at this conference that might be a recurring format. I wanna include everybody, like regardless of their, they are digital pathology sponsors. Obviously sponsors may be featured a little more. 'cause I do wanna show them appreciation even beyond the sponsorship.

But I wanna include everybody regardless of their, sponsorship budget or if we are working together or not. Because you are digital pathology trailblazers and you are advanced in digital pathology. And other than that, I think that's gonna be my plan for today. And going back to the question, what surprised me in digital pathology at this conference?

Was there a surprise? Huh? I don't know if I have a immediate answer to this. Maybe not surprised [00:12:00] observation. Observation that I had at the beginning already that. A lot of companies are here, meaning digital is becoming the integral part of pathology, so they are present at pathology conferences.

This is not a digital pathology conference, it's a pathology conference, and they are all here. All the people I work with, all the people in the digital pathology space, scanners, image management, tissue imagers, like MUSE. Like both cutting edge and the established technologies. And a super cool thing is they visit each other's booth and they look for collaboration.

It's very much the era or the time of interoperability, and everybody wants to work with everybody. So that's not a, let's say, that's a, that's the trend that we have right now and. Is aligned with the principle of interoperability. I don't know [00:13:00] if it's a principle. Basically interoperability. Like you wanna be able to pick the devices that you want, pick the software that you want, or do both.

Let's have one system for one part of the workflow that is closed and then.  Add on top of different things. Another thing that's happening, everybody who has an image management system is trying to get the AI providers on board so that the pathologists, when they are reading in their image management system, they can get access to the AI.

So at Roche booth yesterday, they were showing you, that was not the focus of the video. The focus was their scanner a DP 600, but they were showing this to me. Proscia has that. Techcyte showed that you can deploy algorithm and algorithms. So this is super cool because then you don't need to go to another place.

Those algorithms are already there. Those vendors are working together. You just call one phone number to seek, like if you need support [00:14:00] and you will need support. 'cause it's not that you buy a scanner like a phone and you're gonna click a button and it's gonna start working. There's gonna be a very intensive time of your IT working with the vendor and things like that.

That's for today. If you see me around, just say hi. I have heard I have seen a few digital pathology trailblazers yesterday, and it's always, it makes me smile and it makes me feel that it has used what I'm doing, so that's good. Anything else? I'm sad that it's over. I'm a little bit looking forward to the recovery time, but the last day of the conference is, it's a little different because at the beginning everybody is a lot more official. They're like, everybody has their objectives for the conference and they're trying to work towards those objectives and on the third day as well. But everybody's guard or like the official business persona mixes up [00:15:00] or this this persona lowers down.

Your normal persona comes up. And you have different kind of conversations, like more candid conversations, because this is a very niche field. I would say not only is pathology, not that like huge of a field, people are, were asking me, oh, does anybody else listen to your podcast? And I'm like, I don't think so.

If you're not in the pathology space. I don't think this is of any relevance to you. But maybe somebody does sometimes on YouTube, when I have these more general videos that I sometimes throw in there, like what histology videos, like some, update from wherever anyway. And then YouTube is a little bit more less focused on just pathology.

So then I get some more people, but I don't think anybody listens to this. Who is not in the pathology space. And if you are, please leave a comment because that's gonna make me smile as well. [00:16:00] But yeah, the third day you have cool conversations. You have basically these people are all friends. They know each other, they probably worked with each other at one company or another.

And also from, it looks like, it feels oh, they just like the same people but them for a different company. And from a company perspective. How would you hire somebody with expertise in this field if they didn't already work for a different company in this field? Yeah, and those who are new, they benefit from my book.

So before we go, I want to give you the, if you have not gotten the book yet. Then I'm gonna leave a QR code. This is very useful for people who are just starting their journey. I've heard many of the people entering the field or switching disciplines and joining the this was useful for them. You could scan the QR code and get the book for free.

This is a PDF free, PDF. Also for people [00:17:00] who have expertise in one aspect of digital pathology, but are switching, let's say you have expertise in imaging and like imaging generating the images. And now you're switching to image analysis or ai, so that's gonna be something useful for you. Just also as a teaching resource, if you want a structured way of teaching this to people, you are like an advanced digital pathology trailblazer, and you wanna teach those who  don't have that much experience yet, that's gonna be something for you.

And without further ado, I will just say bye here and I hope I see you on the floor of USCAP on the last day. And if not online, leave me comments and give me some likes here for this video so that we can show it to more people and have more digital pathology of trailblazers at USCAP next year. And in general in the field.

'cause this is where pathology is going with, classical methods and cutting edge methods [00:18:00] like direct digital. Anyway, above my head is logo of MUSE microscopy who are sponsoring this series of podcasts. So thank you so much and if you're still here, come and visit MUSE at Booth 528 and have a fantastic blast day here at USCAP, bye.