AUTOMATED DATA COLLECTION FOR SERIAL SECTION EM

Scripps Research Institute, The, La Jolla CA

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Abstract

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Acquiring high magnification images of a long series of sections is a difficult and labor intensive process. A region of interest must be tracked across the entire set of sections which might be distributed over many specimen grids. This requires examining the sections at a variety of scales prior to acquiring the high magnification images in order to ensure the integrity of the region of interest across the entire set. Multiscale imaging of this sort is not straightforward because the image formed by an electron microscope shifts and rotates as the magnification is changed. The overall task of reconstructing a three dimensional volume from a set of serial sections thus presents a challenging and time consuming process that has limited the number of large scale reconstructions to a few spectacular examples. We have prototyped a software application to automate data collection for most of the tasks required for serial section imaging.