Achievement

Working with IGERT faculty James Henderson (bioengineering) and M. Lisa Manning (physics), IGERT Associate and bioengineering graduate student Megan Brasch has developed a new automated approach that accurately and efficiently tracks cells in complex in vitro environments over sufficiently long timescales to enable quantitative analysis of cell motility. The automated algorithm can identify cell nuclei of variable staining intensities in low contrast images and track the nuclei over long periods of time. It also recognizes cell interactions (division or merging events) that have traditionally limited the accuracy of automated systems in complex environments. This work has produced paper in preparation, one conference proceeding in press, two poster presentations, and co-authorship on one additional poster presentation and one podium presentation.