PV26 Speakers

Subject to change.

 

 

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Zhongliang Zhou, PhD

Senior Scientist, Merck


Dr. Zhongliang Zhou is a Senior Scientist at Merck Research Laboratories, where he leads team on develops AI solutions for biomedical research and digital pathology. His work focuses on computer vision, pathology foundation models, explainable AI, and scalable machine learning systems for healthcare and life sciences. He brings industry experience from Merck, Microsoft Research, Norfolk Southern, and BASF, with a focus on translating advanced AI into practical tools for pathology workflows.

 

 

SESSIONS

PathoSuite: Enterprise Digital Pathology at Scale for Pharmaceutical Clinical Development
   Sun, Oct 18
   1:10 PM - 1:30 PM PT
  Seaport H

Introduction: Pharmaceutical clinical development demands pathology workflows that are reproducible, scalable, and capable of integrating AI-derived insights across heterogeneous imaging environments. Existing approaches typically rely on siloed tools that fragment data management, model execution, and result interpretation - creating bottlenecks that impede both study efficiency and scientific rigor. The emergence of foundation models, generative AI (GenAI), and end-to-end digital pathology platforms presents an opportunity to fundamentally transform these workflows through automation-driven efficiency gains and unified AI orchestration.

Methods: PathoSuite is an Merck internally developed digital pathology platform unifying the full analytical lifecycle. PathoVault handles slide ingestion, access control, and data harmonization; PathoFusion orchestrates AI model execution across oncology, immunology, and metabolic disease indications; PathoMetrics converts outputs into quantitative measures and embedding-based representations for biomarker discovery; and PathoMark UI provides role-appropriate access for visualization, quality control, and AI-assisted analysis. GenAI-powered coding assistants reduced engineering effort by ~50% and accelerated delivery timelines by 2x.

Results: Deployed within Merck's clinical and translational pathology infrastructure, PathoSuite consolidates previously fragmented workflows into a single platform. Standardized data ingestion across vendors, structured AI inference pipelines, and interpretable feature outputs have collectively improved analytical consistency, reduced manual overhead, and accelerated project timelines by 3x.

Conclusion: PathoSuite establishes a enterprise-grade foundation for AI-enabled digital pathology in pharmaceutical development. It supporting reproducible, high-throughput imaging workflows across therapeutic areas and study types.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Describe how a modular platform unify data ingestion, AI inference, and result interpretation across pathology environments.
  2. Explain how foundation model-driven pipelines enable scalable quantitative analysis across disease indications.
  3. Recognize how interpretable feature outputs can broaden AI adoption among stakeholders in a pharmaceutical environment
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