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Imagining the future of bioimage analysis

Nature Biotechnology volume 34, pages 1250–1255 (2016)Cite this article

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Modern biological research increasingly relies on image data as a primary source of information in unraveling the cellular and molecular mechanisms of life. The quantity and complexity of the data generated by state-of-the-art microscopes preclude visual or manual analysis and require advanced computational methods to fully explore the wealth of information. In addition to making bioimage analysis more efficient, objective, and reproducible, the use of computers improves the accuracy and sensitivity of the analyses and helps to reveal subtleties that may be unnoticeable to the human eye. Many methods and software tools have already been developed to this end, but there is still a long way to go before biologists can blindly trust automated measurements. Here, we summarize the current state of the art in bioimage analysis and provide a perspective on likely future developments.

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Figure 1: Common steps in bioimage analysis.
Figure 2: Examples of bioimage analysis in various applications.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank their group members and collaborators for insightful discussions that have helped shape their thoughts and research in bioimage analysis over the years. They also thankfully acknowledge support from Erasmus University Medical Center (E.M.), the National Science Foundation (CAREER DBI 1148823 to A.E.C.), the Allen Institute for Brain Science and the Janelia Research Campus of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (H.P.), the German Research Foundation (DFG SFB 1129/1134) and a Weston Visiting Professorship (F.A.H.), and Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-10-INBS-04-06-France- BioImaging) and Institut Pasteur (J.C.O.M.). Raw data for the bioimage analysis examples shown are courtesy of Graham Knott (Fig. 2c) and Anna Akhmanova (Fig. 2d).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Medical Informatics and Radiology, Biomedical Imaging Group Rotterdam, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

    Erik Meijering

  2. Imaging Platform, Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Anne E Carpenter

  3. Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Hanchuan Peng

  4. Heidelberg Collaboratory for Image Processing, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Fred A Hamprecht

  5. Institut Pasteur, Unité d'Analyse d'Images Biologiques, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unité de Recherche Mixte, Paris, France

    Jean-Christophe Olivo-Marin

Authors
  1. Erik Meijering
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  2. Anne E Carpenter
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  3. Hanchuan Peng
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  4. Fred A Hamprecht
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  5. Jean-Christophe Olivo-Marin
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Correspondence to Erik Meijering.

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Meijering, E., Carpenter, A., Peng, H. et al. Imagining the future of bioimage analysis. Nat Biotechnol 34, 1250–1255 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.3722

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