MCL Research on Nuclei Segmentation
Nuclei Segmentation is a key step in understanding the distribution, size, and shape of nuclei in the underlying tissue. Traditionally, pathologists view histology slides under the microscope to analyze the nuclear structure. However, this process is time-consuming and is prone to inter-reader variability. An AI-based segmentation algorithm can aid pathologists in cancer detection and prognosis, and help speed up the cancer screening procedure.
While there are several deep learning methods addressing this problem, we propose a Green Nuclei Segmentation algorithm that uses a simple, reliable, and modular approach to delineate nuclei in a histopathology slide. The Green U-shaped Learning(GUSL) is a 4 level pipeline that involves three main modules: representation learning using PixelHop, feature selection using RFT, and supervised learning using XGBoost Regressor. The different levels help look at the histopathology image at multiple resolutions, while we attempt to segment the nuclei in a coarse to fine manner. At each level, we aim to correct the previous layer’s predictions through residue correction. While this model gives good results, we can further improve the performance by refining the boundary regions to yield precise nuclei contours.