Pune: Various efforts are currently underway around the world to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) now is trying to diagnose COVID-19 at low cost and in less time.
SPPU is now associated with a startup company Deeptech Medical Imaging Private Limited which diagnoses corona by X-ray, CT scan with the help of artificial intelligence.
In this regard on Wednesday, a letter of intent was signed between the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Enterprise(CIIE) at Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) with the presence of Dr Nitin Karmalkar- (VC) Vice-Chancellor-SPPU, Dr Umarani Pro-VC, Dr Apoorva Palkar-Director Innovation at SPPU and co-founders of Deeptech Ajit Patil, Anuruddha Pant and Dr Amit Kharat to provide market linkage and work on innovative research proposals in healthcare and Artificial Intelligence (AI) domain jointly.
The Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Enterprises, a Section 8 company of the University of Pune, is always striving to bring new entrepreneurs into the mainstream.
CIIE will support this healthcare start-up working in the space of radiology artificial intelligence to validate the innovative Radiology Optimisation Platform called Augmento. It has innovated the space of diagnosis and radiology reporting by embedding AI artificial intelligence (AI) in medical image analysis and workflow thereby augmenting imaging experts, radiology administrators, floor managers and hospital administrators. This breakthrough solution will be administered in various COVID-19 Hospitals in the coming months
Augmento is an ancillary tool for diagnosis of Covid19 pneumonia-like pattern from Digital Radiographs and CT. Augmento allows to do an instant triage and pre-screen from an Xray and CT imaging into normal or suspicious for COVID-19 within a few seconds and it can be supplemented with a clinically validated structured quantified radiology report within 60 minutes of completing the study.
CIIE is working very closely with start-ups and focusing on healthcare and diagnostics. Currently, it has more than 40 start-ups working in the centre. DeepTek is a Pune based start-up founded by Ajit Patil, Aniruddha Pant and Amit Kharat funded by NTT DATA Japan, Nobori, Japan and GHV accelerator.
Dr Nitin R Karmalkar Vice Chancellor SPPU talking to Sakal Times, said, “SPPU is keen to support start-up’s working in COVID diagnostics and provide them access to the ecosystem. This aligns to our vision set up for the proposed centre for molecular diagnostic and research centre is set up at the University.”
Speaking about the project Dr Apoorva Palkar Director IIL-SPPU said, “Centre for innovation helps start-up’s for validating and scaling up and Deeptek a start-up that provides an innovative solution using AI in image processing through X-Ray and CT scan is a novel initiative that can be a great breather when testing is most crucial.”
