Establishing The Edinburgh Super-Resolution Imaging Consortium (ESRIC)

最近，生物学家可以用来检查微观样本的细节大幅增加。这种微观“分辨率”的提高可以分为时间(生物学家观察快速变化的事物的速度)和空间(物体的大小，或物体之间的间距)。最近的技术进步，结合一些聪明的生物学，意味着我们第一次可以确定许多1000个单分子的精确位置，它们的相互作用，运动和在活细胞内形成结构，以毫秒(每秒1000帧的电影)的速度。由于分子是细胞的基本单位，细胞是生命的最小单位，分辨率的提高正开始通过直接研究细胞的分子工作方式来彻底改变我们对细胞生物学的理解。使这成为可能的技术进步来自物理科学：数学、物理、化学和工程学。为了继续这一进展，英国科学界需要让最好的细胞生物学家拥有最合适的生物工具和问题，以及物理科学前沿的研究人员。在所谓的‘生命科学接口’工作并不简单；它需要不同的研究人员有更多的时间相互交流，需要专业的基础设施，需要跨越传统科学边界的真诚愿望，以及来自资助者和机构管理层的坚定支持，以确保这些雄心勃勃的合作能够奏效。到目前为止，英国还没有几家机构能声称在这方面取得了成功。赫里奥特·瓦特大学以其在物理科学方面的工作而闻名国际。利用这一优势，该大学在2010年成立了“生命科学接口实验室(LSI)”，在设备和员工招聘方面投入了大量资金。为了招募在数学、物理和化学方面有良好工作经验的生物学家，成立了一个新的研究所，由细胞生物学家领导，以加速学科之间的互动。该研究所与附近的遗传学和分子医学研究所(IGMM)建立了密切合作，IGMM以其先进的生物学而闻名，旨在解决导致人类疾病和疾病的分子机制。这种合作被证明是非常有成效的，许多小规模的试点项目正在进行中，调查上述应用于人类健康尖端生物学问题的新的超分辨率成像技术的使用。在此，我们请求支持新设备和技术支持，以支持这种合作。需要三台新的显微镜，这将使更多的细胞生物学家能够以前所未有的细节‘看到’他们样本中的结构和分子。与Heriot Watt大规模集成电路的设施相结合，爱丁堡超分辨率成像联盟(ESRIC)将汇集目前可用的每一种活细胞超分辨率成像方法，以及世界领先的细胞生物学家、物理科学家和工程师，他们在跨学科方面取得了公认的成功记录；这在英国是独一无二的。我们还在申请资金，以在ESRIC范围内进行研究，此外，爱丁堡各地的大量细胞生物学家将公开获得这些研究。重要的是，仅仅购买新的商用显微镜并不是我们雄心壮志的极限；我们联盟中的工程师和物理学家在细胞生物学家的指导和信息的指导下，已经在开发继续取得生物发现进展所必需的“下一代”成像方法：同样重要的是，ESRIC所有研究所的高级管理层显然致力于这一活动。

Recently, the detail with which biologists can examine microscopic samples has increased dramatically. Improvements in this microscopic 'resolution' can be split into; temporal (the speed with which biologists can look at fast changing things) and spatial (the size of objects, or spacing between them). Recent advancements in technology, combined with some clever biology, means that we can, for the first time, determine the precise positions of many 10000s of single molecules, their interactions, movements and formation into structures within living cells, with millisecond (1000s of frames of a 'movie' per second) rates. As molecules are the fundamental units of cells, and cells are the minimal units of life, increases in resolution are starting to revolutionise our understanding of cell biology by examining directly the molecular workings of cells.The technological improvements that make this possible have come from the physical sciences: mathematics, physics, chemistry as well as engineering. To continue with this progress, the UK scientific community needs to bring the best cell biologists with the most appropriate biological tools and questions, together with researchers at the cutting edge of the physical sciences. Work at the so-called 'Life Science Interface' is not straightforward; it requires extra time for the various researchers involved to speak to each other, specialised infrastructure, a genuine desire to work across traditional scientific boundaries, as well as committed support from both the funders and the institutional management to ensure that these ambitious collaborations can work. To date, few institutions in the UK can claim success in this.Heriot Watt University is well known internationally for its work in the physical sciences particularly. Taking advantage of this, the University established the 'Life Science Interface Laboratory (LSI)' in 2010 with a large investment in both equipment and staff recruitment. Recruiting biologists with a proven track record of working at the interfaces with mathematics, physics and chemistry, a new Research Institute was established, led by cell biologists, to accelerate the interactions between disciplines. This Institute established a close collaboration with the nearby Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine (IGMM), known for its advanced biology aimed at addressing the molecular mechanisms that underly human disorders and diseases. This collaboration is proving very productive, with many small-scale pilot projects under-way investigating the use of the new 'super-resolution' imaging techniques described above, applied to cutting-edge biological questions in human healthcare.Here, we are requesting support for new equipment and technical support to bolster this collaboration. Three new microscopes are requested, which will allow more cell biologists to 'see' structures and molecules in their samples in unprecedented detail. Combined with the facilities at the LSI at Heriot Watt, the 'Edinburgh Super-Resolution Imaging Consortium' (ESRIC) will bring together every single currently available live cell super-resolution imaging approach, together with world-leading cell biologists and physical scientists and engineers with a proven track record of cross-disciplinary successes; something unique in the UK. We are also requesting funding to pursue research across ESRIC, which will in addition be made openly available to a large number of cell biologists across Edinburgh. Importantly, simply purchasing new commercially available microscopes is not the limit of our ambition; the engineers and physicists in our consortium, directed and informed by cell biologists, are already developing the 'next generation' of imaging approaches that will be necessary to continue progress in biological discovery: of equal importance, the senior management of all the Institutes in ESRIC are demonstrably committed to this activity.