BioInstrumatics
By BioInstrumatics, we mean the combination of biomedical instrumentation and computer (informatics) technology. We both build novel instruments and develop novel control and analysis tools for them. These novel computer-integrated systems for microscopy and manipulation, which continue to enable research in biomedical engineering and medicine, have long been a primary focus of our resource. Here are four of our upcoming research foci:
Data Collection and Analysis: The collaborators using our novel Panoptes high-content microscopy system are driving us to develop new unsupervised techniques for data collection, data reduction, and online decision making. We developed and published a scientific loss-less compression algorithm, which targets on videos with beads and can achieve a compression ratio up to 100:1.
PRISM: The collaborators using our novel two-view microscope platform coupled with a 3D interaction probe are driving us to develop a new data fusion system to integrate two orthogonal five-channel 3D fluorescence data sets with live two-plane video in an automatically-calibrated and aligned coordinate system with a 3D force manipulation probe. This requires bringing together real-time bi-directional deconvolution with interactive 3D manipulation.
Improved Spot Tracking: As our collaborators push to use more and smaller fluorescent beads and shorter exposures, we are pushed to provide accurate and robust automatic detection and tracking of beads in 2D fluorescence microcopy videos with high bead density and low signal/noise ratios. As our collaborators increasingly move to 3D tracking, we are expanding our 3D capabilities.
Image (De)Convolution: The PRISM and SketchBio projects and other collaborators require novel bi-directional deconvolution techniques and Point-Spread Function optimization techniques that are better than the state-of-the-art models of either commercial or research systems. They also require tightly-integrated modeling and convolution to enable scientists to match hypothetical protein assembly solutions to experiment images.