May nanoTalks: Microscopy

Talk 1: 21st Century Microscopy – Seeing is believing

Presented by Rui Santos, PhD Candicate, Institute of Parasitology, University of Zurich

From the basic microscope Antoni van Leeuwenhoek used to observe his described «animalcules» (tiny animals), electron and light microscopy has evolved to the point we can image single particles, providing us with biological insights on cell morphology and function so far unheard of. From single particle electron microscopy to super resolution light microscopy and image processing cells can be observed at the nanometre. The talk will discuss how we got there, what is available nowadays and what the future holds for the field.

Talk 2: Unsupervised Microscopy Data to Content Transformation

Presented by Csaba Forro, PhD candidate, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zurich

The human visual system is able to recognize objects from a complex image almost instantaneously. Extracting scientific information from images with computers however involves billions of calculations with sophisticated underlying methods. While artificial intelligence (AI) approaches have emerged to overcome the shortcomings of traditional feature detection algorithms, the required data-labeling for each newly designed experiment can become prohibitively time-consuming. We will discuss the challenges of how to make computers see in an age of big data. Finally, this talk will present an easily implementable solution for everyday segmentation of biomedical images based on «Face Swap» technology, which does not require time consuming human labeling of data.

In collaboration with Life Science Zurich and supported by UZH Alumni.