Metrology for data in life sciences, healthcare and pharmaceutical manufacturing: Case studies from the National Physical Laboratory


ACTA IMEKO 
ISSN: 2221-870X 
March 2023, Volume 12, Number 1, 1 - 5 

 

ACTA IMEKO | www.imeko.org March 2023 | Volume 12 | Number 1 | 1 

Metrology for data in life sciences, healthcare and 
pharmaceutical manufacturing: Case studies from the 
National Physical Laboratory 

Paul M. Duncan1, Nadia A. S. Smith1, Marina Romanchikova1 

1 Data Science Department, National Physical Laboratory, United Kingdom  

 

 

Section: RESEARCH PAPER  

Keywords: NMI; metrology; digital pathology; medicines manufacturing; metadata standards; data quality; ontologies; FAIR principles 

Citation: Paul M. Duncan, Nadia A. S. Smith, Marina Romanchikova, Metrology for data in life sciences, healthcare and pharmaceutical manufacturing: Case 
studies from the National Physical Laboratory, Acta IMEKO, vol. 12, no. 1, article 10, March 2023, identifier: IMEKO-ACTA-12 (2023)-01-10 

Section Editor: Daniel Hutzschenreuter, PTB, Germany   

Received November 18, 2022; In final form February 20, 2023; Published March 2023 

Copyright: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, which permits unrestricted use, 
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 

Funding: This work was funded by the UK Government Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy through the UK’s National Measurement 
System. 

Corresponding author: Paul M. Duncan, e-mail: paul.duncan@npl.co.uk  

 

1. INTRODUCTION 

Decision making in research, industry and healthcare is 
underpinned by the quality of data including its provenance, 
timeliness, reliability, and other aspects. Ascertaining the data 
quality using metrological principles of traceability, calibration 
and uncertainty can be described as data metrology. While certain 
disciplines such as radiation dosimetry or coordinate 
measurement of industrial components have long incorporated 
metrological tools such as calibration and traceability into their 
workflows, others such as laboratory medicine or pharmaceutical 
manufacturing are relatively new adopters who benefit 
profoundly from the European metrology networks for 
Traceability in Laboratory Medicine and Advanced 
Manufacturing. 

Technological advancements in medicine and pharmaceutical 
manufacturing have been traditionally focused on advances in 

drug discovery, experimental procedures, and manufacture. 
Medicines and treatments are becoming more expensive to 
produce, as pricing models drive down profit margins 
compounded with patents expiry [1]. Therefore, a greater 
emphasis is being placed on maximising the efficiency of 
medicines development and manufacture.  

For the quality and repeatability of processes, most 
pharmaceutical firms operate at high variation levels in terms of 
accurately manufacturing materials. These variations, at levels 

between 3 𝜎 and 4 𝜎, are estimated to cost ~$20 bn annually 
through waste and inefficiency [2]. Therefore, companies are 
increasingly moving to developing controlled and flexible 
processes to offer digital health solutions for their customers.  

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has set out to aid 
digitalisation in healthcare by focusing on the development of 
data metrology for life sciences, medicines and pharmaceutical 
manufacturing. Data metrology refers to the uncertainty present 

ABSTRACT 
Data metrology, i.e., the evaluation of data quality and its fitness-for-purpose, is an inherent part of many disciplines including physics 
and engineering. In other domains such as life sciences, medicine, and pharmaceutical manufacturing these tools are often added as an 
afterthought, if considered at all. The use of data-driven decision making and the advent of machine learning in these industries has 
created an urgent demand for harmonised, high-quality, content rich, and instantly available datasets across domains. The Findable, 
Accessible, Interoperable, Reproducible principles are designed to improve overall quality of research data.  However, these principles 
alone do not guarantee that data is fit-for-purpose. Issues such as missing data and metadata, insufficient knowledge of measurement 
conditions or data provenance are well known and can be aided by applying metrological concepts to data preparation to increase 
confidence. This work conducted by National Physical Laboratory Data Science team showcases life sciences and healthcare projects 
where data metrology has been used to improve data quality. 

mailto:paul


 

ACTA IMEKO | www.imeko.org March 2023 | Volume 12 | Number 1 | 2 

in the data generated in each of these areas, from the quality of 
measurements accompanying the manufacturing to the quality of 
the data used for decision making processes. 

This paper describes the similarities and differences between 
data metrology challenges addressed by NPL in the context of 
several cross-disciplinary projects with the goal of helping users 
to identify their data metrology needs and delivering confidence 
in the effective use of data.  

2. DATA METROLOGY PROJECTS 

The NPL Data Science team has been involved in multiple 
data metrology projects including life sciences, healthcare, and 
medicines manufacturing applications, exploring the similarities 
and domain-specific requirements in data quality and 
management. These projects and related data metrology 
challenges are outlined below. 

2.1. Pharmaceutical manufacturing 

Recent developments in digital pharmaceutical manufacturing 
are generating a large amount of data across varying temporal 
resolutions and manufacturing routes. This data provides 
unprecedented opportunities for pharmaceutical manufacturing 
to derive new insights and efficiencies from experiments but also 
imposes great challenges in data processing, management, 
sharing, and integration. Not only data integrity and authenticity 
are to be ensured, but the processes that lead to the generation 
of data must be traceable to enable trust. 

The pharmaceutical industry introduced “Good 
Manufacturing Practices” (GMP) to standardise processes 
around quality, security and effectiveness, but did not make 
allowances for metrological concepts such as traceability and 
measurement uncertainty. Data metrology therefore becomes a 
critical component in understanding and controlling 
pharmaceutical processes and reducing the variation seen in the 
final product. NPL has worked with major pharmaceutical 
manufacturers and researchers to explore their data metrology 
needs and develop a set of applied research programs.  

1) Ontologies for clinical trial release. NPL has developed 
techniques [3] to develop a Domain Agnostic Measurement 
Ontology, with a view to applying these techniques across 
different industries. For the past 2 years, NPL has worked with 
the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre (MMIC) to 
develop an ontology to aid in the automation and digitalisation 
of all data required for regulators to approve drugs for 
consumption. Much of the approvals process is manual data 
processing which can be replaced by processing of data through 
modern data driven techniques. The ontology developed by NPL 
“codifies” all the data relationships which are pertinent to the 
identification of an expiry date for the release of a drug, 
facilitating true automation, reducing human input and 
significantly decreasing the potential for errors in the process due 
to the development of an approved automated decision process. 

2) Controlled vocabularies for pharmaceutical data exchange. The 
development of the ontology for clinical trials release exposed an 
issue in how data from different companies and manufacturers 
can differ semantically when describing similar terms. For 
example, separate companies may use the terms “pill” and 
“tablet” to describe the same concept. This inconsistency 
decreases the quality of the information used in digitalised or 
automated systems. NPL has developed the first iteration of a 
controlled vocabulary for the clinical trials process to ensure that 
any automated system can understand the terminology used by 
each party [4]. This controlled vocabulary provides a traceable 

link to quality processes for each company which can aid in 
automating the verification of the processes used. Within the 
context of the MMIC use case, this has provided a valid solution 
for partners and collaborators to deal with terminology 
harmonisation issues. NPL has also been exploring the idea of 
working with industry to create an industry-wide standard to 
create a unified approach to solving this problem and reducing 
the uncertainty of the information. 

3) Mapping of measurement uncertainty propagation in manufacturing. 
NPL has been working on an approach to understand the 
measurement uncertainty generated at each stage of a continuous 
manufacturing process. Currently, uncertainty generated at each 
node is not propagated, so to ensure greater traceability of 
variation present in the final product, NPL are currently 
expanding upon pre-existing industrial case studies [5] to develop 
methods to “map” out the uncertainty present in manufacturing 
systems and propagate this to each stage. 

The goal of these use cases under development is to truly 
understand the uncertainty of the information produced during 
pharmaceutical manufacturing and to provide industry with 
frameworks to understand their data metrology. 

2.2. Minimum metadata for biological imaging 

Biological imaging (bioimaging) encompasses a vast array of 
techniques, such as optical microscopy, spectroscopy, 
multispectral imaging, among others. In the pharmaceutical 
industry, these techniques are used both in R&D and in clinical 
studies that evaluate drug resistance, efficacy, targeting 
mechanisms and pharmacodynamics. Complexity, diversity, and 
volume of data generated by high-resolution imaging techniques 
drive the need for advanced analysis and data management 
methods and require new standards to ensure reproducibility of 
results and reliability of research [6]. While the efforts to improve 
data interoperability and definition of minimum reporting 
standards and metadata are ongoing [7]-[9], stronger engagement 
of equipment vendors, researchers and funding authorities is 
needed to create future-proof re-usable and reproducible data 
repositories.  

Seeking such engagement, NPL has been working with two 
major pharmaceutical industry partners to work on three 
bioimaging case studies characterised by high data volumes and 
need for re-use: 1) mass spectrometry imaging (MSI); 2) high 
content screening; and 3) light sheet microscopy (LSM). To 
identify the minimum metadata requirements for the three 
bioimaging domains, subject matter experts (SMEs) were named 
by each partnering organisation. The SMEs worked with NPL 
Data Science team to collate the current practices on data 
management and annotation [10]. The review of the collated 
metadata revealed the metadata categories illustrated in Figure 1. 
The categorised domain-specific metadata sets were enhanced 
with metadata item descriptions, formats, and, where applicable, 
units of measure and suggestions of standardised terminologies 
or controlled vocabularies. The results were revised by all SMEs 
and published in the open NPL report MS 24 [11]. 

The findings of the study were used to define minimum 
microscopy metadata recommendations for research data 
repositories [12]. At NPL, the minimum metadata specifications 
for LSM and MSI were used extensively to develop frameworks 
and tools for bioimaging data capture and annotation [13]. 

2.3. Digital Pathology 

Clinical histopathology describes a study of stained tissue 
sections on glass slides under a microscope, whereby 



 

ACTA IMEKO | www.imeko.org March 2023 | Volume 12 | Number 1 | 3 

pathologists manually change the brightness, focus depth, and 
the region of interest. In digital pathology (DP), tissue samples 
are digitised using a whole slide imaging (WSI) scanner. The 
resulting high-resolution images (1-4 GB) can be studied in silico 
by image analysis software or on-display by a trained pathologist. 
The DP workflow poses multiple metrological challenges: 
reproducibility and repeatability of tissue processing, calibration 
and traceability of WSI, as well as uncertainty analysis to support 
diagnosis.  

The NPL Digital Pathology inter-disciplinary project, 
launched in 2020, comprised a landscape exercise during which 
DP experts and stakeholders identified priority areas for 
metrology support [14], [15]. The outcomes of the landscape 
exercise were used to shape demonstrator studies with real-world 
data. Within the PITHIA trial collaboration 
(http://www.pithia.org.uk, Grant Reference Number PB-PG-
1215-20033), the project team are studying the uncertainties in 
the diagnosis based on kidney biopsy images, aiming to 1) locate 
the sources of uncertainty in decision making and find tools to 
reduce it, as well as 2) find image features that correlate with 
clinical outcomes to increase reproducibility and explainability in 
WSI evaluation. 

The preliminary findings (Figure 2) show how the on-display 
assessment method influences the diagnostic results: when a 
blood vessel wall thickness is measured directly (red line, lower 
left diagram), the assessors show preference for more uniform 
score assignment than if the wall thickness is calculated as a 
difference (outer diameter-lumen diameter)/2 

(blue line, lower right diagram). Further case studies will include 
analysis of measurable image features and their association with 
diagnostic predictions, as well as impact assessment of intra- and 
inter-WSI device variability on image features and diagnosis.  

Future work will include engaging with standards bodies to 
include metrology-enabling contextual data such as calibration 
results, device settings etc. into clinical DP standards such as 
Digital Communications for Medical Imaging (DICOM) and 
Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). These 
standards have high maturity levels and provide mechanisms to 
include metrological metadata and requirements such as units of 
measure, clinical terminologies, ontologies, unique identifiers etc. 

2.4. Medical sensors case study 

While WSI data and associated measurement information can 
be captured using the existing DICOM standard, novel medical 
devices require modification of existing standards to capture new 
data types and provide integration into the healthcare 
infrastructure. NPL worked with a UK-based medical device 
developer to create clinically interoperable data structures to 
store and manage the data from a novel surgical sensor. This 
opportunity facilitated the capture of valuable metrological 
information including traceability and calibration ab initio, 
creating a metrologically sound data model at the early stage of 
device development. 

An example of how custom measurement-related information 
can be included into DICOM metadata is presented in Table 1. 

A custom value (patient tilting angle in degrees) is enclosed in a 
Concept Name Code Sequence that refers to the coding 
document and provides the value inclusive of its format (value 
representation (VR)). Note that the value description includes 
the unit of measure and the reference terminology (Measurement 
Units Code Sequence). 

2.5. Digital health 

New measurement modalities within healthcare are creating 
vast amounts of high-dimensional data from disparate sources 
and of varying quality, including genomic and imaging data, 
biomarkers, electronic healthcare records and data from wearable 
devices. The current and future healthcare practices across the 
world are increasingly reliant on the integration of these diverse, 
complex, and large datasets as well as trusted and robust analysis 
methods [16].   

The data curation process in healthcare includes extraction, 
de-identification, and annotation of datasets with metadata, as 
well as data fusion and linkage. Therefore, future-proof secure 
scalable curation methods that handle rapidly growing data 
volumes are needed.  

NPL runs an ongoing inter-disciplinary Digital Health 
programme aimed to use data metrology tools to help solve some 
of the important and emerging challenges of utilising healthcare 
data [17]. The project includes several case studies, some of 
which are briefly described below, and further details can be 
found in the 2021 report [18]. 

 

Figure 1. Metadata categories in bioimaging 

 

Figure 2. Impact of measurement method on clinical assessment (Remuzzi 
score). Red line: wall thickness is measured directly. Blue line: wall thickness 
is calculated from vessel outer diameter and lumen diameter. Image courtesy 
of Tobi Ayori. 

Table 1. Including custom measurement value, units of measure and 
reference to ontology in DICOM metadata. 

Tag description Tag VR Value 

Concept Name Code Sequence (0040, A043) SQ - 

Code Value (0008, 0100) SH ‘1.2.2-1’ 

Coding Scheme Designator (0008, 0102) SH ‘ASCODE’ 

Coding Scheme Version (0008, 0103) SH ‘1.0’ 

Code Meaning (0008, 0104) LO 
‘Patient 

tilting angle’ 

Numeric Value (0040, A30A) DS ‘-19.05’ 

Measurement Units Code 
Sequence 

(0040, 08EA) SQ - 

Code Value (0008, 0100) SH ‘deg’ 

Coding Scheme Designator (0008, 0102) SH ‘UCUM’ 

Coding Scheme Version (0008, 0103) SH ‘1.4’ 

Code Meaning (0008, 0104) LO ‘degrees’ 

Experimental metadata

Instrument 
settings

Sample 
provenance

Sample 
handling

Data 
processing

http://www.pithia.org.uk/


 

ACTA IMEKO | www.imeko.org March 2023 | Volume 12 | Number 1 | 4 

One of the case studies investigates whether it is possible to 
improve the data quality and comparability by linking patient 
images with imaging device calibration data. The study set out to 
link megavoltage computed tomography (MVCT) images used 
for image-guided radiotherapy with MVCT device calibration 
data from the routine monthly quality assurance tests that check 
whether the scanner is fit-for-purpose. MVCT images are 
routinely used for patient positioning, radiation dosimetry, and 
in-treatment therapy effect assessment. Like other medical 
imaging modalities, MVCT images are subject to temporal and 
inter-device variations that are known to have negative influence 
on the accuracy of subsequent radiation dose calculation and 
image segmentation. We implemented a procedure that includes 
the device calibration information into the DICOM header 
information of the patient scan. We expect that the MVCT 
calibration data can be used to remove the device-related 
variability and make the patient images more inter-comparable, 
reduce the variations in the image quality, improving the accuracy 
of analysis, safety, and efficiency of data-driven clinical 
interventions [18].  

Another case study focussed on the development of data-
driven models to identify key prognostic markers in 
computerised medical records (CMR). CMR are a powerful 
source of information as they contain population level health 
indicators. These data can be used for estimations of disease 
incidence, provide insight into disease complexity and identify 
sub-groups of patients, among other things. National and 
regional level data aid decision-making in response to potential 
disease outbreaks, while identification of patient sub-groups can 
aid treatment planning, moving towards personalised medicine. 
Despite the enormous potential, identifying trends in large 
primary care data and inferring meaning from these data is 
extremely challenging due to their complexity, heterogeneity, 
dimensionality, incompleteness, and noisiness. CMR data are 
often mixed-type, making traditional data analysis tools 
unavailable. A generic data pre-processing and deep learning 
approach for visualisation and analysis of CMR data has been 
developed at NPL [19]. The tools enable the analysis of CMR 
data, as well as other related data types, such as demographics, 
metadata, medical histories, in a way that identifies non-linear 
patterns in an unlabelled manner. The features that form patient 
clusters can be linked back to the input data and interpreted by 
the clinician or stakeholder to aid in their decision making in 
complex healthcare scenarios. This framework can also be 
applied as a data exploration study to obtain data-driven 
hypotheses that can be tested with further data. 

A further case study in the Digital Health programme 
evaluates how data linkage can be used to improve the quality of 
life and long-term treatment outcomes for prostate cancer 
patients by using the patient care data acquired outside of clinical 
trials. We developed an ontology-based data curation framework 
to identify and collate information about diagnosis, symptoms, 
and treatment side effects from routine primary care electronic 
health records. This work is a first step to increase the utility of 
primary care data for oncology by a) creating a knowledge base 
of data sources, b) mapping out the required integration efforts, 
and c) developing a practical ontology-based method for 
systematic and reproducible prostate cancer case identification 
and validating this method on real-world datasets. The developed 
ontology can be used to standardise the identification and 
retrieval of prostate cancer cases from primary care data [20]. 

NPL’s most recent endeavours to increase availability and 
reliability of medical data include developing a curated data 

platform. The platform will provide mechanisms for curation, 
storage, metadata annotation, linkage, and analysis of clinically 
relevant imaging, audit, and calibration data (Figure 3). Such a 
platform would provide a much-needed foundation to enable 
access to a richer and larger dataset than what is currently 
available, rendering the data FAIR-er, and thus increasing its 
value and utility. 

3. CONCLUSIONS 

This work presents a range of use cases and demonstrator 
studies in life sciences and healthcare developed by NPL through 
active collaborations with industry partners and researchers in 
digital pathology, bioimaging, pharmaceutical and bio-
manufacturing. It is aimed to highlight the need for data 
metrology in life sciences and healthcare and to stress the role of 
National Measurement Institutes in these areas. Despite the 
relative heterogeneity of the presented case studies, the identified 
problems feature similarities including (a) missing metadata 
specifications, (b) lack of mechanisms to capture, exchange and 
propagate metrological information such as calibration data from 
data acquisition during measurement to its processing and (c) 
lack of methods to combine and propagate uncertainties in data 
processing chains. 

The three problems listed above call for a systematic 
approach to data curation and metadata annotation based on the 
need for FAIR-ness and data reusability. Although the missing 
metadata specifications can be addressed using custom 
ontologies and controlled vocabularies, striving towards 
standards and minimum data quality requirements is 
recommended to increase data re-usability and impact across 
different sectors/companies. Furthermore, there is a variety of 
existing open standards and formats that can and should be used 
to manage data from new medical devices and imaging 
modalities. These standards can be adapted to incorporate 
information pertaining to metrological traceability and 
uncertainty. Lastly, while the use of, and need for, metrology 
methods is widely recognised in physics and engineering, in life 
sciences, medicine and pharmaceutical manufacturing these tools 
are often added as an afterthought, if considered at all. Therefore, 
work is required to demonstrate the need for and the impact of 
data metrology via case studies in the respective domains.  

The NPL Data Science team believes that the identified 
challenge areas highlight both the need for heterogeneous 

 

Figure 3. FAIR data platforms for clinically relevant research 



 

ACTA IMEKO | www.imeko.org March 2023 | Volume 12 | Number 1 | 5 

approaches to Data Metrology as well as common pain points 
across these fields. The findings presented in this paper call for a 
proactive and consistent approach to generating and using quality 
data. FAIR Data Platforms such as that shown in Figure 3 
demonstrate an end-to-end approach to how data should be 
treated to ensure adherence to the FAIR principles and reduce 
any uncertainty generated due to the processing or labelling of 
the data.  

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

This work was funded by the UK Government Department 
for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy through the UK’s 
National Measurement System. We would also like to thank our 
partners at the MMIC; CPI, University of Strathclyde, UKRI, 
Scottish Enterprise, AstraZeneca and GSK as well as ArtioSense 
Ltd and the PITHIA trial investigators. Thanks to Michael 
Chrubasik, Louise Wright, and Peter Harris for providing 
feedback on the manuscript. 

REFERENCES 

[1] D. Taylor, The Pharmaceutical Industry and the Future of Drug 
Development, Pharmaceuticals in the Environment, Edited by R. 
E. Hester; R. M. Harrison, 2015, pp. 1–33.   
DOI 10.1039/9781782622345-00001  

[2] J. S. Srai, C. Badman, M. Krumme, M. Futran, C. Johnston, Future 
Supply Chains Enabled by Continuous Processing-Opportunities 
and Challenges, Continuous Manufacturing Symposium, 20–21 
May 2014, J. Pharm. Sci., vol. 104, 3 (2015), pp. 840–849. 
DOI: 10.1002/jps.24343  

[3] J.-L. Hippolyte, M. Chrubasik, F. Brochu, M. Bevilacqua, A 
domain-agnostic ontology for unified metrology data 
management, Meas. Sens., 18 (2021), p. 100263.  
DOI: 10.1016/j.measen.2021.100263 

[4] P. M. Duncan, D. S. Whittaker, Distribution identification and 
information loss in a measurement uncertainty network, 
Metrologia., 58 (2021), 034003.  
DOI: 10.1088/1681-7575/abeff8  

[5] M. Chrubasik, C Lorch, P. M. Duncan, Ontology-Based Rest-
APIs for Measurement Terminology: Glossaries as a service, 
IMEKO TC6 Int. Conference on Metrology and Digital 
Transformation, Berlin, Germany, 19-21 September, 2022. 
DOI: 10.21014/tc6-2022.023  

[6] B. J. Heil, M. M. Hoffman, F. Markowetz, Su-In Lee, C. S. Greene, 
S. C. Hicks, Reproducibility standards for machine learning in the 
life sciences, Nat Methods, 18 (2021), p. 1132–1135.  
DOI: 10.1038/s41592-021-01256-7 

[7] C. Allan, J.-M. Burel, J. Moore, C. Blackburn, M. Linkert, S. 
Loynton, D. MacDonald, W. J. Moore, C. Neves, A. Patterson, M. 
Porter, A. Tarkowska, B. Loranger, J. Avondo, I. Lagerstedt, L. 
Lianas, S. Leo, K. Hands, R. T. Hay, A. Patwardhan, C. Best, G. J. 
Kleywegt, G. Zanetti, J. R. Swedlow, OME Remote Objects 
(OMERO): a flexible, model-driven data management system for 
experimental biology, Nat. Methods, vol. 9, 3 (2012), pp. 245–253. 
DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1896  

[8] O. J. R. Gustafsson, L. J. Winderbaum, M. R. Condina, B. A. 
Boughton, B. R. Hamilton, E. A. B. Undheim, M. Becker, P. 
Hoffmann., Balancing sufficiency and impact in reporting 
standards for mass spectrometry imaging experiments, 
GigaScience, vol. 7, 10 (2018).  
DOI: 10.1093/gigascience/giy102  

[9] M. Huisman, M. Hammer, A. Rigano, U. Boehm, J. J. Chambers, 
N. Gaudreault, A. J. North, J. A. Pimentel, D. Sudar, P. Bajcsy, C. 
M. Brown, A. D. Corbett, O. Faklaris, J. Lacoste, A. Laude, G. 
Nelson, R. Nitschke, D. Grunwald, C. Strambio-De-Castillia; 
Minimum Information guidelines for fluorescence microscopy: 
increasing the value, quality, and fidelity of image data, 

ArXiv191011370 Cs Q-Bio, (2020). Online [Accessed 9 March 
2020]  
http://arxiv.org/abs/1910.11370 

[10] E. Cooke, M. Hayes, M. Romanchikova, Acquisition and 
management of high content screening, light-sheet microscopy 
and mass spectrometry imaging data at AstraZeneca, 
GlaxoSmithKline and NPL: a survey report, NPL Report. MS 25, 
(2020).  
DOI: 10.47120/npl.MS25  

[11] F. Brochu, J. Bunch, E, Cooke, A. Dexter, M. Romanchikova, M. 
Shaw, T. R. Steven, S. A. Thomas, Federation of Imaging Data for 
Life sciences: current status of metadata collection for high 
content screening, mass spectrometry imaging and light sheet 
microscopy of AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and NPL, NPL 
Report. MS 24, (2020).  
DOI: 10.47120/npl.MS24  

[12] U. Sarkans, W. Chiu, L. Collinson, M. C. Darrow, J. Ellenberg, D. 
Grunwald, J-K. Hériché, A. Iudin, G. G. Martins, T. Meehan, K. 
Narayan, A. Patwardhan, M. R. G. Russell, H. R. Saibil, C. 
Strambio-De-Castillia, J. R. Swedlow, C. Tischer, V. Uhlmann, P. 
Verkade, M. Barlow, O. Bayraktar, E. Birney, C. Catavitello, C. 
Cawthorne, S. Wagner-Conrad, E. Duke, P. Paul-Gilloteaux, E. 
Gustin, M. Harkiolaki, P. Kankaanpää, T. Lemberger, J. 
McEntyre, J. Moore, A. W. Nicholls, S. Onami, H. Parkinson, M. 
Parsons, Marina Romanchikova, N. Sofroniew, J. Swoger, N. Utz, 
L. M. Voortman, F. Wong, P. Zhang, G. J. Kleywegt, A. Brazma, 
REMBI: Recommended Metadata for Biological Images - enabling 
reuse of microscopy data in biology, Nat. Methods, 18 (2021), pp. 
1–5.  
DOI: 10.1038/s41592-021-01166-8  

[13] S. Thomas, F. Brochu, A framework for traceable storage and 
curation of measurement data, Meas. Sens., 18 (2021), pp. 100201. 
DOI: 10.1016/j.measen.2021.100201  

[14] M. Adeogun, J. Bunch, A. Dexter, C. Dondi, T. Murta, C. Nikula, 
M. Shaw, A. Taylor, I. Partarrieu, M Romanchikova, N. A. S. 
Smith, S. A. Thomas, J. Venton, Metrology for Digital Pathology. 
Digital pathology cross-theme project report, NPL Report. AS 
102, (2021).  
DOI: 10.47120/npl.AS102  

[15] M. Romanchikova, S. A. Thomas, A. Dexter, M. Shaw, I. 
Partarrieau, N. A. S.  Smith, J. Venton, M. Adeogun, D. Brettle, R. 
J. Turpin, The need for measurement science in digital pathology, 
Journal of Pathology Informatics, (2022), 100157, preprint. 
DOI: 10.1016/j.jpi.2022.100157  

[16] The Topol Review - NHS Health Education England. Online 
[Accessed 31 March 2022]   
https://topol.hee.nhs.uk/  

[17] N. A. S. Smith, D. Sinden, S. A. Thomas, M. Romanchikova, J. E. 
Talbott, M. Adeogun, Building confidence in digital health 
through metrology, Br. J. Radiol., vol. 93, 1109 (2020), pp. 
20190574. 
DOI: 10.1259/bjr.20190574  

[18] N. A. S. Smith, M. Romanchikova, I. Partarrieu, E. Cooke, A. 
Lemanska, S. Thomas, NMS 2018-2021 Life-sciences and 
healthcare project “Digital health: curation of healthcare data” - 
final report, National Physical Laboratory, NPL Report. MS 31, 
(2021).  
DOI: 10.47120/npl.MS31  

[19] S. A. Thomas, N. A. S. Smith, V. Livina, I. Yonova, R. Webb, S. 
de Lusignan, Analysis of Primary Care Computerized Medical 
Records (CMR) Data with Deep Autoencoders (DAE), Front. 
Appl. Math. Stat., 5 (2019), 12 pp.  
DOI: 10.3389/fams.2019.00042  

[20] A. Lemanska, S. Faithfull, H. Liyanage, S. Otter, M. 
Romanchikova, J. Sherlock, N. A. S. Smith, S. A Thomas, S. de 
Lusignan, Primary Care Prostate Cancer Case Ascertainment, 
Stud. Health Tech. Inf., 270 (2020), pp. 1369-1370.  
DOI: 10.3233/SHTI200446  

https://doi.org/10.1039/9781782622345-00001
https://doi.org/10.1002/jps.24343
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measen.2021.100263
https://doi.org/10.1088/1681-7575/abeff8
https://doi.org/10.21014/tc6-2022.023
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-021-01256-7
https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1896
https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giy102
http://arxiv.org/abs/1910.11370
https://doi.org/10.47120/npl.MS25
https://doi.org/10.47120/npl.MS24
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-021-01166-8
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measen.2021.100201
https://doi.org/10.47120/npl.AS102
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpi.2022.100157
https://topol.hee.nhs.uk/
https://doi.org/10.1259/bjr.20190574
https://doi.org/10.47120/npl.MS31
https://doi.org/10.3389/fams.2019.00042
https://doi.org/10.3233/SHTI200446