NSF Supports MBL Workshop on Innovations in Imaging and Computation
MBL Senior Scientist Rudolf Oldenbourg has received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to co-present a national workshop on “Enabling Biological Discovery Through Innovations in Imaging and Computation.” The workshop will be held at the Marine Biological Laboratory on November 26-28, 2018.
The workshop was inspired by major transformations in imaging live cells, organs, and whole organisms based on recent improvements in light microscopy and computation. These advances have also underscored three critical needs: 1) team-based development of new technologies that integrate imaging across scales and incorporate methods drawn from microscopy, computation, and biology 2) fast, accessible, and responsive deployment of technological innovations, and 3) related training opportunities at the interface of biology, physics, and engineering.
The purpose of this workshop is to brainstorm innovative approaches that create a positive feedback loop between instrument developers, computational experts, and biologists. The workshop is structured around three themes: building and disseminating new microscopy methods; computation for generating image data and their analysis; and creating the infrastructure to enable interdisciplinary collaboration and training. Participants will help identify concrete courses of action for making interdisciplinary research and training in biological imaging more effective.
The workshop is organized by a team of researchers who have collaborated in the past across different disciplines and institutions. Their expertise lies in biology (Daniel Colón-Ramos, Yale University School of Medicine and MBL Fellow), optical imaging (Hari Shroff, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and MBL Fellow; and Rudolf Oldenbourg, MBL), and computational imaging (Patrick La Rivière, University of Chicago and MBL Fellow). The workshop will bring together key players who work at the interface of biology, engineering, physics, and computation to advance imaging for biological discovery.