Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

Cytometry, or the analysis of cells, is fundamentally important to many areas of biological research. Image cytometry is one form of cytometry performed by capturing high-resolution images of cells using a microscope. This approach can acquire high-quality images of cell morphology, is tolerant of different cell sizes, and can assess many types of cell behaviours and functions. A fundamental need for image cytometry is the rapid acquisition large amount of high-quality microscopy data to capture the full heterogeneity of biological samples. This need is especially important for emerging studies that use artificial intelligence to perform deep analysis of cell image data. This proposal requests funding for a high-throughput microscope system to fill critical needs in several multi-disciplinary research programs in image cytometry. The requested microscope can acquire microscopy images at ~20X speed of conventional microscopes. This equipment will support research programs spanning a wide range of disciplines, including AI-powered image cytometry, stain-free drug screening, image-based cell separation, analysis of cardiomyocyte contractility, development of organ-on-a-chip microfluidic systems, and elucidate the molecular mechanisms of cytokine secretion. The requested microscope system provides a versatile platform for HQP training at the graduate, undergraduate, and postdoctoral level. Trainees will be able to use this platform to develop valuable skills in large scale microscopy data acquisition and analysis.