Advanced live imaging for the Eastern ARC with dual inverted light-sheets and AI-led analysis

在过去的二十年里，显微镜已经变成了一个令人难以置信的令人兴奋的研究领域，最近获得了两个诺贝尔奖和许多新技术的发展。科学家们现在可以长时间、高分辨率地观察细胞的移动、消化、相互作用、繁殖和组装。但是，如果强光聚焦在细胞上，细胞很容易受损。因此，当用显微镜观察细胞时，通过降低光强度来最小化这种光损伤是很重要的。然而，较低的光照水平会导致显微镜下的图像较差，有用的信息也较少，因此在强光（图像良好，但细胞受损）和弱光（细胞健康，但图像较差）之间存在明显的两难境地。光片显微镜是一种相对较新的技术，它可以通过在低光强度下提供良好的图像来解决这个问题：用“光片”或光平面扫描脆弱的细胞、组织和整个生物体，可以观察数天，产生令人惊叹的电影。与包括埃塞克斯大学、肯特大学和东安格利亚大学在内的东部地区的合作者一起，我们希望使用高端的光片显微镜，结合尖端的软件来解决新的和令人兴奋的生物学问题。这将允许英格兰东南部和东部的许多研究小组使用薄片显微镜进行他们的研究。通过建立一个全国性的光片用户小组来分享使用光片显微镜的新方法。通过使这项技术更容易被用户使用，用光片成像将以我们以前认为不可能的方式为我们提供对生物系统的新见解。

Microscopy has turned into an incredibly exciting area of research over the last two decades, with two recent Nobel Prizes and many new technological developments. Scientists can now observe cells moving around, digesting, interacting, multiplying and assembling at high resolution and over long periods. But cells are easily damaged if intense light is focussed on them. So when observing cells with a microscope, it is important to minimise such photodamage by lowering the light intensity. However, lower levels of light result in poorer images in the microscope and less useful information, so there is a clear dilemma between high light (good image, but cells damaged) and low light (cells healthy but image worse). Lightsheet microscopy, a relatively new technique, can solve this issue by providing good images at low light intensity: Delicate cells, tissues and whole organisms are scanned with a 'sheet' or plane of light and can be observed over days, producing breathtaking movies. Together with collaborators across the Eastern Arc, which comprise the universities of Essex, Kent and East Anglia, we want to use a high-end light-sheet microscope in combination with cutting-edge software to address new and exciting biological questions. This will allow many research groups in the South East and East of England to use light-sheet microscopy for their investigations. By establishing a nation-wide light-sheet user group to share new ways to use light-sheet microscopes. By making this technology more accessible to users, imaging with light sheets is poised to give us new insights into biological systems in ways we may not have thought possible.