Thanks to donations made in 2020, we were recently able to award histopathologist Clare McGenity with a research fellowship, providing funding of £50,000 for her work.

Clare works as a Histopathology Registrar at Leeds Teaching Hospitals but she’s currently working in the Digital Pathology team on an exciting research project, under the supervision of Professor Darren Treanor.

Clare’s research project involves working with computer scientists to look at developing an algorithm to see if Artificial Intelligence (AI) could help the diagnosis of liver disease. Ordinarily, a pathologist would help to provide a diagnosis by examining biopsies on slides viewed under a microscope. By building up a database of lots of similar digital images and comparing the diagnosis of each, artificial intelligence could help to speed up the process and reduce subjectivity.

Ultimately, Clare believes this innovative technology can be used to provide quicker and more accurate diagnoses to patients, many of whom could be waiting anxiously for treatment into cancer or complex liver disease.

The digital pathology team at Leeds are part of a world-leading pathology department and Clare’s work is part of a larger international research project looking into how digital technology can support the work of pathology teams in diagnosis. Clare still has a few months of her project to go but she’s already published her first academic article and is now compiling all the data from her project so she can apply for her PhD in this same field.

Clare said “I’m so grateful to everyone who donates to support research. This fellowship has been a real stepping-stone in my academic career and I wouldn’t have been able to do the work without support from the charity. It’s a really exciting area of pathology to be working in and could have huge benefits for patients in the future.”