Quantifying cell deformation with optical flow in time-resolved super-resolution
Autumn 2016
Master Semester Project
Project: 00308
Super-resolution imaging has revolutionized fluorescence microscopy in the past 10 years by breaking the diffraction limit resolution. Despite their great spatial resolution, a common limitation of most super-resolution techniques is their inability to acquire time-resolved sequences in living cells. The recently proposed Super-resolution optical fluctuation imaging (SOFI) developed in the LOB group of Theo Lasser at EPFL has broken this barrier and allows us to access super-resolution video sequences.
This project aims at creating methods to quantify cell deformation on SOFI data through the analysis of the motion of different cell structures like actin network or mitochondria. The first objective will be to adapt well established 2D motion estimation framework (optical flow) to 3D data. Then the method will be improved to overcome the specific challenges of our fluorescence images, namely the presence of noise, photo-bleaching and undesirable spots. The final goal is to provide biologists with a practical tool to analyze new data and answer important biological questions.
- Supervisors
- Denis Fortun, denis.fortun@epfl.ch, 35136, BM 4.138
- Michael Unser, michael.unser@epfl.ch, 021 693 51 75, BM 4.136
- Theo Lasser