# Unifying Multiple Foundation Models for Advanced Computational Pathology

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.00736 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.00736/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 18 of its 52 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Mar 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [Layer Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.06450/) (2016)
- [LAION-5B: An open large-scale dataset for training next generation image-text models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.08402/) (2022)
- [Switch Transformers: Scaling to Trillion Parameter Models with Simple and Efficient Sparsity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.03961/) (2021)
- [Attention-based Deep Multiple Instance Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.04712/) (2018)
- [Data Efficient and Weakly Supervised Computational Pathology on Whole Slide Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.09666/) (2020)
- [PathVQA: 30000+ Questions for Medical Visual Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.10286/) (2020)
- [Rotation Equivariant CNNs for Digital Pathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.03962/) (2018)
- [Virchow2: Scaling Self-Supervised Mixed Magnification Models in Pathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00738/) (2024)
- [BACH: Grand Challenge on Breast Cancer Histology Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.04277/) (2018)
- [HEST-1k: A Dataset for Spatial Transcriptomics and Histology Image Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.16192/) (2024)
- [Phikon-v2, A large and public feature extractor for biomarker prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.09173/) (2024)
- [A Clinical Benchmark of Public Self-Supervised Pathology Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.06508/) (2024)
- [Benchmarking foundation models as feature extractors for weakly-supervised computational pathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.15823/) (2024)
- [Hard Sample Aware Noise Robust Learning for Histopathology Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03694/) (2021)
- [Distilling foundation models for robust and efficient models in digital pathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.16239/) (2025)
- [UniToPatho, a labeled histopathological dataset for colorectal polyps classification and adenoma dysplasia grading](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.09991/) (2021)
- [Towards A Generalizable Pathology Foundation Model via Unified Knowledge Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.18449/) (2024)
- [Masked Vision and Language Pre-training with Unimodal and Multimodal Contrastive Losses for Medical Visual Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.05314/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [SAGE: Semantic Explainability of Attention-Based Survival Models in Computational Pathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.02803/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Foundation models have substantially advanced computational pathology by learning transferable visual representations from large histological datasets, yet their performance varies widely across tasks due to differences in training data composition and reliance on proprietary datasets that cannot be cumulatively expanded. Existing efforts to combine foundation models through offline distillation partially mitigate this issue but require dedicated distillation data and repeated retraining to integrate new models. Here we present Shazam, an online integration model that adaptively combines multiple pretrained pathology foundation models within a unified and scalable representation learning paradigm. Our findings show that fusing multi-level features through adaptive expert weighting and online distillation enables efficient consolidation of complementary model strengths without additional pretraining. Across spatial transcriptomics prediction, survival prognosis, tile-level classification, and visual question answering, Shazam consistently outperforms strong individual models, demonstrating that online model integration provides a practical and extensible strategy for advancing computational pathology.