Alper Yilmaz, PhD

Alper Yilmaz, PhD, brings a special perspective as an engineer on the Translational Therapeutics Program at the OSUCCC – James. He is developing a navigation system to help surgeons visualize perioperative images and define better tumor margins in real time.

The system is composed of multiple stationary cameras. It uses Google Glass to identify the position and orientation of the surgeon’s tools and superimposes the tumor margin and trajectory information on the Google Glass display. The software analyzes dynamic three-dimensional changes in the surgical scene and patient’s body to relocate and re-register the tumor region as the organs move. Dr. Yilmaz and his team are also developing a prototype of this system for pathology guidance.

More recently, Dr. Yilmaz’s lab has been focused on machine learning and deep learning, including a research study that involves working on categorical artificial staining of histopathological images for delineating cancer cells.

Dr. Yilmaz has co-authored more than 40 peer-reviewed articles appearing in scientific publications, including Scientific Reports, Journal of Field Robotics and ACM Computing Surveys. He has also shared his research in dozens of presentations to organizations and events such as the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, the International Topical Meeting on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis, and the American Nuclear Society.