Svetlana Illarionova, the head of a research group at the Skoltech AI Center, became the winner of the “Women for a Healthy Society” competition in the category “AI and Digital Solutions for Health.” The competition finals took place on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. During the awards ceremony, Svetlana received a diploma of the Eurasian Women’s Forum from Federation Council Chairperson Valentina Matvienko.
Svetlana’s project, “Intelligent Pathomorphology,” uses generative artificial intelligence for virtual tissue staining, reducing the time needed to obtain a molecular diagnosis for breast cancer from several days to just a few hours. The technology will help doctors select personalized treatment faster, which is especially valuable for regional medical centers. The project aims to provide comprehensive diagnostic information from a single standard histological section (stained with hematoxylin and eosin) without additional immunohistochemical analysis. For physicians, this means more diagnostic information from a familiar preparation and a faster path to personalized treatment.
Among the key areas of “Intelligent Pathomorphology” are analysis of the tumor’s immune microenvironment and virtual staining, which helps assess key breast cancer markers and reduces the time to obtain a molecular diagnosis to a few hours. The models have been trained and validated on data from 100 patients, with more than 100,000 cell nuclei annotated using double expert labeling. Prediction quality for ER, PR, and HER2 reaches an AUC of 86–92%.
The project is particularly useful for cancer centers, pathomorphology laboratories, private clinical networks, remote regions, and telepathology services without access to IHC equipment.
The “Women for a Healthy Society” competition recognizes socially significant projects in healthcare — from prevention and patient support to digital solutions and medical technologies. The initiative aims to improve quality of life by introducing tools that provide access to reliable and high‑quality information about health preservation principles. The competition is held with the support of the Council of the Eurasian Women’s Forum and the Roscongress Foundation. Over 450 projects were submitted for the anniversary competition.
