Neil Marya, MD
By Merin C. MacDonald | Date published: August 20, 2024
August Researcher Spotlight: Neil Marya, MD
Department of Medicine clinical investigator utilizing artificial intelligence to help improve diagnosis of malignancies.
Neil Marya, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, a director of the Program in Digital Medicine, and director of the Digital Medicine Fellowship, is a clinician and researcher who focuses on artificial intelligence and machine learning models for image analysis, diagnostics, and digital pathology.
As an early-stage investigator, Dr. Marya’s research has ranged from studying the evolving role of capsule endoscopy for managing gastrointestinal bleeding to investigating endoscope reprocessing and strategies to eliminate endoscope-transmitted infections. His current work focuses on examining the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the diagnosis of gastrointestinal and pancreaticobiliary malignancies.
Dr. Marya recently received funding to develop AI technology that will improve diagnostics for patients with cholangiocarcinoma, a malignancy of the bile ducts associated with significant morbidity and mortality. In the fall of 2023, he received a Prize for Academic Collaboration and Excellence (PACE) award from UMass Memorial Medical Group in partnership with UMass Chan Medical School. Dr. Marya, along with co-investigators Navine Nasser-Ghodsi, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, and Dheera Reddy, MD, of the Division of Transplant Surgery in the Department of Surgery, is utilizing AI to analyze and interpret cholangioscopy videos so that the team may improve the diagnostic accuracy of identifying whether biliary strictures are benign or malignant. “The goal of our project is to create an artificial intelligence that will help clinicians diagnose bile duct cancer more quickly and with better accuracy,” said Dr. Marya. “In doing so, technology could facilitate more patients with bile duct cancer being offered curative therapy.” In addition to their PACE award, Drs. Marya and Nasser-Ghodsi received seed funding from MassVentures in early 2024 to further fund the AI technology to improve diagnostic accuracy for cholangiocarcinoma. “Thus far we have been successful in developing a real-time artificial intelligence computer that can help us diagnose patients with bile duct cancer during patient cases in our operating room,” said Dr. Marya. “While our clinical trial is still ongoing, early results demonstrate that the artificial intelligence is more accurate for cancer diagnosis than standard biopsy techniques. This technology could be a game-changer for the diagnosis of biliary cancers worldwide.”
Dr. Marya earned his medical degree and completed his internal medicine residency at UMass Chan Medical School, where he also served as a chief resident. Additionally, he completed fellowships in gastroenterology and advanced endoscopy at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, respectively. Dr. Marya joined the faculty at UMass Chan/UMMH in 2020. In addition to his leadership roles in the Program in Digital Medicine, he currently serves as the director of both Bariatric Endoscopy and Faculty Development and Innovation, and assistant director of the Advanced Endoscopy Fellowship at UMass Chan Medical School.
Of the clinical research environment at UMass Chan, Dr. Marya remarked, “The leadership at UMass Chan Medical School and, specifically, the Department of Medicine and the Program in Digital Medicine have created a unique and optimal experience for me to develop as an investigator...I am extremely grateful to be part of this community.”
We thank Dr. Marya for his contributions to the research mission of the Department of Medicine!