TIA Centre: News

29th UK Conference on Medical Image Understanding and Analysis, Leeds (15th - 17th July 2025)

The Medical Image Understanding and Analysis (MIUA) conference is a cornerstone of the UK’s medical imaging research community, bringing together experts from mathematics, computer science, engineering, and medicine. With a growing international presence, MIUA showcases cutting-edge research across modalities, from MRI and ultrasound to histopathology.

Computational pathology, while rapidly evolving, can often feel smaller and more isolated than its radiology counterparts, with less visibility. To help foster community and visibility, we launched the Recent Advances in Computational PathologyLink opens in a new window session at MIUA 2024 in Manchester, which welcomed four oral presentations and nine power-pitches.

Following its success, we were thrilled to return in 2025 with an expanded special session: Frontiers in Computational PathologyLink opens in a new window. Held on the afternoon of Day 1 in the impressive Nexus building at the University of Leeds, this year’s session featured nine oral presentations selected through rigorous peer review, alongside numerous poster contributions. The session drew speakers from across the UK and Europe, including Spain and Germany – clearly reaching a broader audience thanks to improved advertising and outreach.

Due to the high number of accepted talks, the session was split into two halves. The first was chaired by Adam and Mostafa, and the second by Adam and Neda. Talks spanned a wide range of topics including registration, segmentation, detection, classification, survival prediction and biomarker discovery. A recurring theme was the use of foundation models, applied to tasks such as classification benchmarking and segmentation enhancement. We also saw refreshing contributions using more traditional approaches, such as persistent homology, demonstrating the methodological diversity in the field.

This year, we also introduced a new feature: Best and Runner-Up Presentation Awards. To ensure fairness, winners were selected based on a combined score from reviewer feedback and an audience vote. Attendees voted live using a QR code, and results were tallied at the end of the session. We were delighted to see two students from the TIA Centre receive the highest scores:

• Best Presentation: Jiaqi Lv – “Leveraging Pathology Foundation Models for Panoptic Segmentation of Melanoma in H&E Images” 

• Runner-Up: George Wright – “ASTER: Automated Segmentation of Endometrial Histology Images for Reproductive Health Assessment”

Our session organisers had the following to say about the conference and the session:

“It’s been incredibly rewarding to see how much momentum our special session has gained in just a year. The diversity of research and the enthusiasm from presenters and attendees alike really shows that this field is thriving. I’m proud of what we’ve built with the Frontiers in Computational Pathology session, and excited to see where we go next.” – Adam Shephard

"It was inspiring to see how this year’s session not only showed advanced research but also encouraged real connections between researchers at different stages of their careers. The variety of methods and viewpoints, from foundation models to more classical approaches and from across the UK and Europe, really shows the strength of our field. The energy in the room gave me confidence that computational pathology is moving into an exciting new phase, and I look forward to building on this progress together." – Neda Zamanitajeddin

After the session, attendees enjoyed a lively doctoral consortium, followed by networking drinks and canapés. Despite the torrential rain, many of us ventured out to explore Leeds and share a meal together. Staying in university accommodation added a nostalgic touch – complete with the obligatory fire alarm!

MIUA 2025 was a resounding success, and the Frontiers in Computational Pathology session continues to grow in impact and visibility. We’re already looking forward to MIUA 2026 in Dublin! 

By Adam Shephard and Neda Zamanitajeddin

With special thanks to the MIUA FCPath Organising Committee: 

Dr Adam Shephard, Dr Mostafa Jahanifar, Neda Zamanitajeddin, Prof Nasir Rajpoot

And the MIUA FCPath Programme Committee: 

Dr Adam Shephard, Prof Nasir Rajpoot, Dr Mostafa Jahanifar, Neda Zamanitajeddin, Dr Shan Raza, Dr Fayyaz Minhas, Dr Noorul Wahab, Dr Mark Eastwood, Dr Constantino Carlos Reyes-Aldasoro, Prof Reyer Zwiggelaar.

And to all who submitted papers, reviewed, presented or attended our special session – thank you!