Caption: Hooman Rashidi, Lombardi and Shinozuka Experimental Pathology Research Professor, associate dean of artificial intelligence in medicine and executive director of CPACE, Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, presents CPACE’s work at the Pitt AI PathConnect: Bridging Innovation in Computation 2025 symposium.
By Kat Procyk
Photography by Rayni Shiring, University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh’s Computational Pathology and AI Center of Excellence (CPACE) hosted leaders and innovators committed to transforming diagnostic medicine through computational innovation on Nov. 5, 2025, as part of the annual Pitt AI PathConnect: Bridging Innovation in Computational Pathology 2025 symposium.
The one-day event, held at the U.S. Steel Tower in Downtown Pittsburgh, featured keynote speakers, expert panels and demonstrations for stakeholders focused on the real-world application, validation and responsible integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in pathology and laboratory medicine workflows.
In his opening remarks, Liron Pantanowitz, Dr. Maud L. Menten Professor of Pathology and chair, Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, noted that CPACE has a clear yet ambitious vision: to integrate academic excellence with artificial intelligence with real-world problem-solving in health care and biomedical research.
“We realize that the volume of data is really not the key anymore,” Pantanowitz said.
“We know it’s quality, heterogeneous data that avoids bias. We’re trying to get people globally to contribute their data, so we can build better AI algorithms, and they can deploy them. We can learn from those deployments as a group.”
Hooman Rashidi, Lombardi and Shinozuka Experimental Pathology Research Professor, executive director of CPACE, Department of Pathology, and associate dean of artificial intelligence, School of Medicine, elaborated further on the work of CPACE and its goal of being the gold standard model for using AI technologies in health care, particularly in fields like pathology and laboratory medicine.
He also introduced three key CPACE initiatives—Nebulon-GPT, Pitt-AI-cademy and WSI Genie—each aligned with one of the organization’s core pillars: community service, education and innovations in clinical care.
- Nebulon-GPT is an open-source framework designed to enable secure, private chat bot AI interactions, empowering communities with accessible technology.
- Pitt-AI-cademy serves as a robust, no-code and fully interactive educational platform, offering comprehensive AI training and resources to foster learning and innovation.
- WSI Genie accelerates the development and validation of AI models, with a particular focus on enhancing cancer detection and diagnostic workflows.
The event hosted representatives of CPACE’s partners, including Leidos, Hologic, Leica and Roche, and fostered interdisciplinary networking for workforce development in computational pathology and AI.
Caption: Liron Pantanowitz, Dr. Maud L. Menten Professor of Pathology and chair, Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, discussed the vision of CPACE at the Pitt AI PathConnect: Bridging Innovation in Computation 2025 symposium.