INSPIRE: Fully-assembled Biology via Light-field Illumination and Intact-tissue Imaging

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

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.