Support and Development of EMAN for Electron Microscopy Image Processing

描述（由申请人提供）：本申请寻求支持继续发展EMAN，一个广泛的电子显微镜图像处理套件。结构生物学是研究单个分子和生物纳米组件的三维结构，目的是了解它们的功能并将其功能与细胞过程联系起来。这些研究既用于为生物化学提供物理背景，也用于研究特定的相互作用，例如药物与靶分子的相互作用，病毒如何与细胞相互作用或生物分子如何物理起作用。EMAN的主要用途是一种被称为单粒子分析的技术，它将数千到数十万个单个分子/组件的二维图像合并在一起，以产生高分辨率的三维重建。EMAN在全球拥有超过1500名用户，包括一个完整的基于OpenGL的3-D图形用户界面（GUI），建立在数百个图像处理算法的广泛库上。该申请寻求继续支持EMAN的发展，并扩大其能力，使其对更广泛的研究人员有用。我们将支持一些新的TEM方法，如螺旋处理，随机锥形倾斜和单粒子断层扫描。此外，我们将把EMAN的高级GUI与其他几个专门的TEM图像处理软件工具连接起来，允许用户在各种软件包之间无缝地来回移动数据，并使用EMAN的高级GUI来分析和合并结果。目前，由于不同软件包之间的标准不同，使用多个软件包的过程异常困难和耗时。我们将建立必要的数据和惯例翻译，使这种处理更加简单。EMAN也开始在其他学科的软件项目中作为组件使用。这个应用程序将允许我们为这些开发人员提供帮助，以便将EMAN的有用性扩展到新的生物群落。最后，我们将通过增强文档和扩展EMAN的跨平台支持，为现有用户提供持续的支持。结合起来，这些活动将大大提高这个社区的生产力，并为NIH资助的新用户群体提供有用的工具。这些方法被用于生物学的不同领域，并扩大了我们对各种疾病和状况的理解，如神经退行性疾病、心脏病和癌症。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application seeks support for continued development of EMAN, an extensive image processing suite for electron microscopists. Structural biology is the study of the 3-D structure of individual molecules and biological nanoassemblies for the purpose of understanding their function and relating that function to cellular processes. Such studies are used both to provide a physical context to biochemistry as well as to study specific interactions, such as drugs interacting with target molecules, how viruses interact with cells or how biomolecules physically function. EMAN's primary use is for a technique known as single particle analysis, which merges thousands to hundreds of thousands of 2-D images of individual molecules/ assemblies to produce a high resolution 3-D reconstruction. EMAN has an installed user-base of over 1500 users worldwide, and includes a complete OpenGL based 3-D Graphical User Interface (GUI) built on an extensive library of hundreds of image processing algorithms. This application seeks continued support for the development of EMAN and for expanding its capabilities to make it useful to a broader range of researchers. We will support a number of new TEM methodologies, such as helical processing, random conical tilt and single particle tomography. In addition, we will connect EMAN's advanced GUI to several other specialized TEM image processing software tools, permitting users to seamlessly move data back and forth between the various packages, and use EMAN's advanced GUI to analyze and merge results. At present the process of using multiple software packages is exceptionally difficult and time consuming due to differing standards between the packages. We will establish the necessary data and convention translations to make such processing straightforward. EMAN is also beginning to be used as a component in software projects in other disciplines. This application will permit us to give assistance to these developers working to expand EMAN's usefulness to new biological communities. Finally, we will provide continuing support to our existing users, by enhancing documentation and extending EMAN's cross-platform support. Combined, these activities will serve to greatly enhance the productivity of this community and provide useful tools to new groups of NIH funded users. These methods are used in diverse areas of biology, and have expanded our understanding of diseases and conditions as diverse as neurodegeneration, heart disease and cancer.