While the system was designed to sort C. elegans for a specific research project, Lu believes the machine learning technology which is borrowed from computer science could be applied to other areas of biology that use model genetic organisms. The system's hardware and software are currently being used in several other laboratories beyond Georgia Tech.
"Our automated technique can be generalized to anything that relies on detecting a morphometric or shape, size or brightness difference," Lu said. "We can apply this to anything that can be detected visually, and we think this could be expanded to studying many other problems related to learning, memory, neuro-degeneration and neural developmental diseases that this worm can be used to model."
Individual C. elegans are less than a millimeter long and thinner than a strand of hair, but have 302 neurons with well-defined synapses. While research using single cells can be simpler to do, studies using the worms are good in vivo models for many important processes relevant to human health.
Other researchers who contributed to this paper include student Jeffrey Stirman from Georgia Tech's interdisciplinary program in bioengineering, Professor James Rehg from Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing, and three researchers from the Department of Biology at Stanford University's Howard Hughes Medical Institute: Chan-Yen Ou, Peri Kurshan, and Professor Kang Shen.
The autonomous processing facilitated by the new system could allow researchers to examine more animals more rapidly, potentially opening up areas of study that are not feasible today.
"We are hoping that the technology will really change the approach people can take to this kind of research," said Lu. "We e
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| Contact: John Toon jtoon@gatech.edu 404-894-6986 Georgia Institute of Technology Research News Source:Eurekalert |