A BioImagingUK Network: A Scientific Community Defining Strategic Initiatives for UK BioImaging.

就其本质而言，尖端成像依赖于先进的硬件和专家人员。在大多数情况下，英国生命科学家和医学研究人员可以使用必要的成像基础设施来支持他们的直接工作，英国研究委员会和慈善机构的大量投资已经在英国各地的学术部门和研究所建立了许多世界级的成像设施。然而，任何一个机构的成像设备通常是由当地的研究重点驱动的，并不是任何一个机构的所有成像方式都是最先进的。此外，在过去的十年里，成像技术在分辨率、速度、灵敏度、信号处理、功能读出和生物物理建模方面取得了巨大的飞跃，现在达到了以前无法想象的能力。然而，这种新技术的复杂性和复杂性使得在英国的每个站点建立和运行尖端成像技术变得不切实际。虽然几个单独的站点已经在这些新兴成像技术中的一种或多种方面建立了专门知识，但没有一个机构能够提供现在可以应用于生物学问题的所有成像能力，这些成像能力在现代生物科学中将变得越来越必要。尽管如此，如果英国的生命科学家和医学研究人员想要保持在各自领域的国际前沿，他们就需要获得所有这些技术。因此，迫切需要确定成像仪器和人员基础设施、准入政策和可持续的支持机制，这些都必须支撑英国科学的发展。我们建立了BioImagingUK (http://bioimaginguk.org)，这是一个为英国成像科学确定战略重点、获取政策和可持续实践的基层倡议。这一努力建立了一个由成像科学家和技术专家组成的一致、坚定的联盟，他们为英国生物成像的战略和政策做出了明确、公开的声明。迄今为止，BioImagingUK的活动包括一系列以组织我们的优先事项为中心的社区活动，发展战略声明，代表英国生物成像科学家的利益，协调英国对Euro-BioImaging不断发展的活动和提案呼吁的回应。该提案为BioImagingUK寻求第一个正式资助，以形成一个英国网络，将用于继续和扩大BioImagingUK的活动。

By its very nature, cutting edge imaging depends on advanced hardware and expert personnel. In most cases, UK life scientists and medical researchers have access to the imaging infrastructures necessary to support their immediate work and significant investments by UK Research Councils and charities have built a number of world-class imaging facilities in academic departments and institutes across the UK. The imaging facilities at any individual institution, however, are usually driven by the local research priorities and not all imaging modalities at any single institution are at the state of the art. Furthermore, over the last decade enormous leaps have been made in imaging technology with advances in resolution, speed, sensitivity, signal processing, functional readouts and biophysical modelling - now reaching previously unimagined capabilities. The increasing sophistication and concomitant expense and complexity of this new technology, however, make it impractical to build and run cutting edge imaging technology at every site in the UK. While several individual sites have established specific expertise in one or more of these emerging imaging technologies, no single institution can provide all the imaging capabilities that can now be applied to biological questions and which will become increasingly necessary in modern bioscience. Nonetheless, if UK life scientists and medical researchers are going to stay at the international forefront of their fields, they need access to all of these technologies. Thus there is a critical need to define the imaging instrumentation and personnel infrastructure, access policies, and sustainable support mechanisms that must underpin UK science going forward. We have built BioImagingUK (http://bioimaginguk.org), a grassroots initiative to define strategic priorities, access policies, and sustainable practices for UK imaging science. That effort has built an aligned, committed consortium of imaging scientists and technologists who have contributed to a clear, public statement of strategy and policy for UK bioimaging.To date, BioImagingUK's activities include a series of community activities centred on organising our priorities, developing strategic statements, representing the interests of the UK bioimaging scientists, and coordinating UK's response to Euro-BioImaging's evolving activities and calls for proposals. This proposal seeks the first formal funding for BioImagingUK, to form a UK Network, that will be used to continue and expand BioImagingUK's activities.