Acquisition of Equipment for Three Dimensional Organismal Reconstruction, Analysis and Modeling

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From cells to populations, an organism's world is three dimensional and dynamic. Organismal analysis is on the verge of a revolution. Never in history has the equipment and computing power been sufficient to allow most organismal biologists to move rapidly and quantitatively from one level of organization to another. We are entering an era of Integration that is simply unprecedented. To this end, we propose the creation of a unique facility for organismal biologists which consists of equipment that will allow acquisition, analysis, presentation and world-wide exchange of three-dimensional (3D) structure, function and behavior. We request four major, state-of-the-art pieces of equipment in the present proposal: a 3D stereo-microscope ("real-time", large depth-of-field, resolution-enhanced), 3D laser digitizer (capable of whole organismal scans in 15 sec at 14,580 points/sec with 0.05 mm resolution), 3D high-speed imager (capable of capturing 58,000 split images in 5 sec directly into memory) and a graphics computer cluster to process, analyze and exchange the images and data. Projects greatly facilitated or made possible include: the neural basis for behavior, biomechanics of morphogensis, gut-chemical reactor modeling of digestion, 3D musculo skeletal modeling of tetrapods to the earliest hominids, 3D dynamic whole-body modeling of insect locomotion (which has provided biological inspiration toward the design of autonomous legged robots), dinosaur behavior and the fluid movements that affect organisms in the world's oceans. The proposed infrastructure equipment will promote: the utilization of approaches across disciplines, cross fertilization of ideas, the creation of new fields of investigation, new approaches for museum data collection and distribution, new collaborations with engineers, computer scientists and the private sector, and novel training of future organismal biologists.