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局综合组织系统司的调制计划、科学和工程局计算机信息和智能系统司的图形和可视化计划、生物科学局生物基础设施部的生物信息学进展以及生物科学局的新兴前沿计划。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完整脑部活动模式。实现对复杂系统的高精度控制和高分辨率信息，同时保持对同一系统的完整的全球视角，对神经科学来说尤其困难，但扩展到所有生物学的研究。这项工作的预期结果将是使世界各地的生物学家能够方便地实时观察3D体积的组织中细胞的同时活动。从整个社会和国家科学基金会的角度来看，这项鼓舞人心的提议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，并将导致开发出生物学中最大的数据集。这项研究计划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，这将利用和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和免费在线公众访问产生的信息，这些信息将通过网站(www.oopgentics.org)访问，该技术将免费转让给其他美国学术或政府实验室。该项目面临的挑战是获得关于复杂系统的高分辨率信息，同时保持对同一系统的全局和功能性观点：一种方法可能是变革性的，不仅在神经科学领域，而且在整个生物学领域。

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.