Leadership

Brought to fruition by leaders of the Ellison Institute, TIC, and Olympus, the Ellison Institute-Olympus Innovation Partnership supports the efforts of multidisciplinary scientists by providing them the advanced microscopy tools they need to overcome challenges and achieve breakthroughs in cancer research, diagnostics, and patient care.

David B. Agus, M.D., Founding Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ellison Institute Dr. David B. Agus is a professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and Viterbi School of Engineering and the CEO and founding director of the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC. “Cancer medicine is at a crossroads. Genetic research has shown that hundreds of genes are involved, making it difficult to envision how genetic approaches and standard treatments will cure cancer. Because of this, USC and Olympus have assembled a powerful team of clinicians and imaging technologies to advance diagnostic capabilities toward precision medicine.” – David Agus, MD

Yoshi Saito, Division Head of Olympus Scientific Solutions During his thirty-six-year career at Olympus, including decades of R&D and marketing experience for the ultrasound endoscope in the Medical Business, Yoshi Saito has lead R&D and Manufacturing for Olympus America and Gyrus ACMI. He is focused on making the Scientific Solutions Business into a global workflow solutions provider and on creating products and services that meet the Olympus mission of helping to make people’s lives healthier, safer, and more fulfilling.

Yujin Arai, R&D Division Manager of Olympus Scientific Solutions Yujin Arai has been a member, manager, and general manager in life science microscopy for twenty-seven years. Yujin has been mainly focused on high-end life science microscopy systems and was on the product teams for the LSC101 laser scanning cytometer and the FV300 laser scanning microscope. He was product leader of the FV1000 microscope and of cellSens imaging software, which was codeveloped with OSIS (Olympus Soft Imaging Solutions). Before becoming R&D Division Manager, Yujin was group leader and general manager of the software and electrical development team.

Lee Wagstaff, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Olympus Corporation of the Americas Lee Wagstaff has been an Olympus team member in the life sciences microscopy business for twenty-one years and is deeply committed to helping people throughout the Americas live safer, healthier, and more fulfilling lives. Lee has been a champion for people’s health throughout his career, having spent ten years prior to joining Olympus with Baxter Healthcare focused on treating cardiovascular disease through the safe and effective development of artificial heart valves.

What is precision medicine?

According to the Precision Medicine Initiative at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, precision medicine is defined as, “an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person.” This approach enables doctors and researchers to predict, with greater accuracy, which treatment and prevention strategies for a particular disease will work in which groups of people. Precision medicine contrasts with a one-size-fits-all medical approach, in which disease treatment and prevention strategies are generated for the average person in a given population, with little consideration to individual differences.

What is pharmacogenomics?

Pharmacogenomics is the study of how genes affect a person’s response to particular drugs and is a key part of precision medicine. This relatively new field combines pharmacology (the science of drugs) and genomics (the study of genes and their functions) to develop effective, safe medications and doses that are tailored to variations in a person’s genes.

What is precision oncology or precision cancer medicine?

The terms precision oncology and precision cancer medicine can be used interchangeably. Precision oncology involves identifying the best possible treatment and prevention strategies for individual patients and using and sharing this knowledge to advance precision oncology research for the population at large. The capacity to start the right treatment at the right time for the right duration can save patients from unnecessary treatments, as well as ensure that an optimal sequence of treatments is being employed from the outset. Researchers use patients’ unique molecular data, combined with their clinical data and environment, to achieve precision cancer medicine.

How does Olympus support precision medicine?

Olympus provides a range of tools to assist in precision oncology, including the following:

• Endoscopes for surgical biopsy
• Histology microscopes
• Automated whole slide imaging microscopes
• 3D confocal scanning microscopes
• 3D analysis software
• AI-powered deep-learning technology

3D and AI imaging and analysis solutions

Using 3D images acquired by our scanning systems, Olympus’ 3D analysis software can provide statistical information about tumor spheroids and organoids. Our deep-learning technology enables researchers to train the scanning system’s neural network to perform rapid label-free object identification and classification.

The Ellison Institute, for example, uses Olympus’ FV3000 microscope and cellSens software’s TruAI deep-learning module for automated high-speed drug screening. They also configured an automated high-content screening system with the FV3000 microscope, exploiting our software’s macro-micro scanning function for 3D organoid detection and targeted imaging.

Tumor localization and primary diagnosis

Minimally invasive, multimodal endoscopes enable physicians to precisely locate the tumor and collect samples for biopsy with minimal disruption of surrounding tissue.

Endoscopy and surgical biopsy

Histology and 3D/4D cellular and molecular characterization

In traditional histology, the biopsied tissue is stained, enabling a trained pathologist to examine it using a microscope or for the tissue to be scanned by a whole slide imaging microscope.

New 3D/4D cellular and molecular characterization methods are providing physician-scientists with more information, including the capacity to compare changes in live-cell imaging over time—the 4th dimension.

Growth of patient cancer tissue in vitro, anti-cancer drug screening

Live tumor tissue is biopsied from the patient in the clinic and transported to the research lab, where the tumor tissue is dissected into single cells and placed in a series of mini-well microplates, where they grow into spheroids. Because each microwell is self-contained, researchers can test different compounds to determine which combination might be the most effective weapon in fighting an individual patient's tumor.

Scientists can also capture high-resolution 3D/4D images of the organoids to obtain critical information about the individual patient’s tumor, including the number and type of cells, morphology, cell growth or death rates, and then ultimately, use this information to help monitor the effectiveness of the latest anti-cancer compounds.

Slide scanning histology

Articles

SelectScience—Incubation monitoring for cancer cell line quality control and banking
“Find out how experts at the Ellison Institute are harnessing new cell monitoring technology to build cancer cell biobanks and enhance cell line quality control and authentication.” Editorial

Microscopy Today—Towards Precision Medicine: The Ellison Institute and Olympus Partnership is Working to Change the Future of Cancer Medicine
“As explicitly translational paradigms like precision medicine have advanced, the Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of the University of Southern California and Olympus formed a partnership to address some of the key scientific, technological, and computational challenges associated with evolving needs in cancer medicine. This article highlights some of the specific microscopy innovation and scientific challenges addressed by the partnership.” Author: Brendan Brinkman

Application Notes

Automated Analysis of Label-Free Organoid Imaging Data
This study used cellSens™ software’s macro function to make batch image analysis workflows for label-free organoid data. The results where then compared to a CellTiter-Glo 3D cell viability assay to assess the analysis speed and determine the accuracy and sensitivity of object detection and measurement. 

Talks

Seungil Kim, PhD, Ellison Institute Staff Scientist, spoke at a SLAS 2021 special interest group session on the topic of “High content imaging approaches to organs-on-chips: recent advancements and future prospects” (Jan 26, 2021)
Watch the presentation

Shannon Mumenthaler, PhD, Ellison Institute Lab Director, spoke at the Olympus Discovery Summit on the topic of “High-Content Imaging of 3D Cancer Models” (Apr 27, 2021):
Watch the presentation

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