Research at Sectra
With its roots in research, Sectra’s ties with the research community continue to grow
Innovation is part of Sectra’s identity. Ever since the company was spun off from the Institute of Technology at Linköping University in the late 1970s, scientific advances have formed the basis for our commercial solution development. Our core strategy is to embrace the latest academic achievements, while achieving our own scientific discoveries and supporting our customers’ research initiatives.
We maintain a high pace of innovation, and the research conducted at Sectra is a vital part of our innovation efforts. Our research department conducts and participates in projects to produce clinical evidence for existing technology as well as to create new products. Our team of scientists—most with PhD degrees or higher—develop knowledge, methods and prototypes that pave the way for product development. The main scientific domains covered by our in-house expertise are artificial intelligence, image analysis, visualization, human-computer interaction and informatics. Research projects are often conducted together with universities, hospitals and strategic partners around the world. Sectra regularly takes on a leading role in initiatives to attract research and innovation funding.
As a Sectra customer, you can boost your research and innovation activities in several ways. The imaging IT platform we provide is excellent for many research needs. Numerous academic customers deploy a separate system as a sandbox for exploratory work, such as developing AI-based applications or conducting reader studies. The open interfaces mean that you can easily integrate your self-developed solutions for realistic validation.
There are also possibilities for collaborations involving Sectra’s expertise. For early adopters of innovations from the Sectra labs, there are both academic opportunities for putting them to use and operational gains to be made thanks to rapid adoption. When strategic agendas align, Sectra is no stranger to engaging in joint projects aimed at creating the clinical toolset of tomorrow. Our philosophy is to engage in close, long-term relationships where every step of the way is a win-win experience in itself—but also paves the way for developing a more in-depth, mutually beneficial collaboration with increasingly greater returns.
Sectra has established a unique “triple helix” of innovation with the Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV), a cross-disciplinary research center at Linköping University Hospital. Sectra, a co-founder of CMIV, here collaborates closely with its academic and clinical counterparts on focused, front-line research. The mission is to develop methods and tools for image analysis and visualization to solve the clinical challenges of tomorrow.
The central theme across all research activities is data-intensive diagnostics, building the scientific and technical foundation for healthcare’s shift toward precision medicine. This work is underpinned by AI advances: the fusion of modern AI methods with novel diagnostic workflows shows exciting potential, and we explore how to best do it. It’s not just about building AI tools, but also ensuring they can be trusted and governed in clinical settings. That includes work on AI feedback mechanisms, and monitoring AI performance over time. Another track, building on Sectra’s unique strengths, is to develop methods for combining data from pathology, radiology, and genomics to increase diagnostic precision and efficiency.
Sectra is one of the main participants in the Swedish initiative AIDA, Analytic Imaging Diagnostics Arena. AIDA is a national arena for research and innovation in AI for diagnostic data, with the aim of leveraging the full benefits of AI-based tools in the Swedish healthcare sector.
Our researchers are also participating in the large-scale Swedish AI initiative WASP, the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program. Starting from actual clinical needs, Sectra researchers are developing methods for effective decision support using the full breadth of multimodal diagnostic data and the latest AI methods.
Sectra’s research efforts often result in scientific publications, a great vehicle for engaging in and benefiting from the academic community. Out of the hundreds publications from Sectra’s research department and its collaborations over the years, a few representative examples are presented below.
Interested to learn more, or to schedule a meeting and/or demo? Don’t hesitate to get in touch.
