Automated high throughput high-resolution imaging

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Solving essential questions of biology requires the acquisition of large amount of data and excellent analytical approaches. For research addressing biological problems using tissues and animals, the pace of progress is mostly hampered by the lack of technologies allowing to acquire and analyse large amount of images at high resolution in a short period of time. Such technology has recently been built, in the form of a computer-controlled robotic device coupled to a confocal microscope. This high throughput equipment, called VAST, can automatically load, orient, image and redistribute hundreds of live embryos into multiwell plates. Imaging is done at subcellular resolution in record time, while keeping track of all the data to the redistributed animals for further studies. The computer not only acquire the data but also analyse them according to parameters defined by the specific research question investigated. Such equipment is to yet available in the UK, except for Edinburgh. We therefore propose to acquire such equipment in London, for the benefit of a large set pf scientific programmes supported by the BBSRC. Moreover, we plan to open the equipment to a broader scientific community, in and around the capital (eg. Brighton, Cambridge, Bath, Bristol).