INSPIRE: Fully-assembled Biology via Light-field Illumination and Intact-tissue Imaging

该INSPIRE奖的部分资金来自生物科学理事会综合有机体系统部门的调制计划、计算机信息科学与工程理事会信息与智能系统部门的图形与可视化计划、生物科学理事会生物基础设施部门的生物信息学进展。以及生物科学理事会的新兴前沿项目。这个跨学科的项目将利用由新的化学工程技术驱动的一个非凡的机会来定义复杂哺乳动物行为背后的全脑活动模式。在复杂系统上实现高精度控制和高分辨率信息，同时保持对同一系统完整的全局视角，对于神经科学来说尤其困难，但可以扩展到所有生物学的研究。这项工作的预期结果将使世界各地的生物学家能够在三维组织中实时观察细胞的同时活动。从整个社会和美国国家科学基金会的角度来看，这个INSPIRE提案的意义可能非常广泛。这些信息对于理解如何调整复杂的行为以及复杂的生物系统如何运作至关重要，并将导致生物学中最大数据集的发展。该研究项目还将整合新的多学科方法，包括生物工程、遗传学、光学、化学工程和计算机科学，这将利用并加强丰富的地方和全国多学科培训和教育环境。计算工具将解决数据管理问题，公众可通过网站（www.optogenetics.org）免费在线获取由此产生的信息，该技术将免费转让给其他美国学术或政府实验室。该项目满足了在复杂系统上获得高分辨率信息的挑战，同时保持了对同一系统的全局和功能视角：一种方法可能是变革性的，不仅在神经科学中，而且在整个生物学中。

This INSPIRE award is partially funded by the Modulation Program in the Divison of Integrative Organismal Systems in the Directorate for Biological Sciences, by the Graphics and Visualization Program in the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems in the Directorate for Computer Information in Science and Engineering, by the Advances in Biological Informatics in the Division of Biological Infrastructure in the Directorate for Biological Sciences, and by the Emerging Frontiers Program in the Directorate for Biological Sciences. This interdisciplinary project will capitalize on a remarkable opportunity driven by new chemical-engineering technology to define the full brainwide activity patterns underlying complex mammalian behaviors. Achieving high-precision control and high-resolution information on a complex system, while maintaining intact a full global perspective on the same system, is especially difficult for neuroscience but extends to the study of all biology. The expected outcome of this work will be to enable biologists around the world to readily observe simultaneous activity of cells in 3D volumes of tissue and in real time. From the perspective of both society-at-large and NSF, the significance of this INSPIRE proposal may be very broad. This information will be crucial for understanding how complex behaviors can be tuned, and how complex biological systems operate, and will lead to development of what will be among the largest datasets in biology. This research program also will integrate new multidisciplinary approaches encompassing bioengineering, genetics, optics, chemical engineering, and computer science, which will capitalize upon and strengthen the rich local and nationwide multidisciplinary training and education environments. Computational tools will address data curation and free online public access to resulting information that will be accessible via the website (www.optogenetics.org), and the technology will be freely transferred to other U.S. academic or government laboratories. This Project meets the challenge of achieving high-resolution information on a complex system, while at the same time maintaining a global and functional perspective on the same system: an approach may be transformative, not only in neuroscience, but also throughout biology.