AI imaging platform targets rare cellular events
Researchers in Scotland are set to gain access to an AI-powered imaging platform designed to identify rare cellular events among millions of cells, potentially allowing biomedical researchers to study biological processes that would otherwise be difficult to detect.
Heriot-Watt University has secured £449,000 from the Wolfson Foundation to bring the new system to the Edinburgh Super-Resolution Imaging Consortium (ESRIC), a national imaging facility used by researchers across Scotland.
ESRIC specialises in super-resolution microscopy, which allows researchers to visualise cellular structures and processes at a scale beyond conventional light microscopy. The new platform will add artificial intelligence and automation to the imaging workflow, identifying regions of interest, adjusting imaging settings and capturing large volumes of data with minimal human intervention.
The aim is to overcome one of the limitations of conventional super-resolution imaging: the amount of time researchers must spend manually locating and capturing relevant events.
“At the moment, finding one important event among millions of cells can take hours of painstaking manual searching,” said Dr Jessica Valli, ESRIC's Imaging Technology Manager, who will deliver the project. “This system does that in a fraction of the time, and it does it automatically, which means researchers can spend less time hunting for answers and more time understanding what they have found.”
The ability to examine very large numbers of cells is particularly important when the biological event of interest is rare or short-lived. Processes involved in normal cell function can occur only briefly, while disruption of the same mechanisms can contribute to diseases including cancer.
By automating the identification and imaging of regions of interest, the new system will allow researchers to collect much larger datasets than are currently practical. This should increase the statistical power of experiments and improve researchers' ability to detect rare biological events.
Researchers at ESRIC are already planning projects that will make use of the capability, including tracking how immune cells invade ageing muscle tissue and mapping how faulty genetic switches contribute to disease.
The platform will also extend ESRIC's reach as an open-access facility. The consortium has trained more than 250 researchers from more than 30 countries through its annual Super-Resolution Specialist School, while its existing programme includes free training and remote access to advanced imaging technology.
Remote operation of the new system will allow researchers elsewhere in Scotland to collect high-quality imaging data without travelling to Edinburgh, potentially reducing both costs and the carbon footprint associated with research access.
Heriot-Watt has committed a further £150,000, taking the total project cost to just under £600,000. The investment reflects the university's strengths in photonics, AI and health technologies.
The new imaging platform is expected to be fully operational by March 2027 and will be incorporated into ESRIC's annual Super-Resolution Specialist School from 2027. Pic: Fayette Reynolds
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