Thursday, August 21, 2025 8/21/2025

High spatiotemporal optical imaging to study dynamics of 3D cell motion and behavior in living organisms

Award Number: R35GM150947
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF GENERAL MEDICAL SCIENCES
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/15/2023
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 08/31/2028

Group Awards By:

View Award Description

High spatiotemporal optical imaging to study dynamics of 3D cell motion and behavior in living organisms - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Behavioral analysis of individual cells that determines the structural phenotypes in response to the mechanical stimuli or cell migration is important in organogenesis or tissue morphogenesis. Dynamic cell tracking, migration trajectory monitoring, or temporal changes in cell shape or size are essential for modeling cellular interactions. However, optical limits imposed by microscope objective lenses and light attenuation in tissue hinder high- resolution evaluation of cell physiology on the dimension scale of μm to nm. Hence, several super-resolution fluorescence modalities have been developed in recent years to enable nanoscale tissue characterization and less damage to tissue histopathology. On the other hand, isotropic nanometer optical resolution for super- resolution modalities is restricted to micron scale field-of-view (FOV). This physical limitation reflects in vivo characterization up to cellular events only. Therefore, we propose to develop an advanced optical imaging technique to achieve sub-cellular resolution, while providing user capability to modulate millimeter to centimeter FOV for in vivo monitoring. Light-sheet fluorescent microscopy (LSFM) has emerged as a popular optical sectioning modality in biomedical research, owing to rapid camera frame rates in conjunction with long working distance excitation optics. Although LSFM provides intermediate-to-high resolution images, the resolution is highly dependent on the confocal range of the excitation objective. To overcome this challenge, we propose to apply the rolling shutter (RS) based-axially sweeping LSFM technique to de-couple the dependence of light sheet FOV on excitation numerical aperture (NA). RS is a type of image capture in sCMOS camera that record the frame line by line on an image sensor instead of capturing the entire frame all at once to improve signal-to-noise, but it can create some unintended image distortions. Thus, we will incorporate the application of maximum likelihood estimation as a post-acquisition restoration strategy to remove optical distortions introduced by RS image acquisition to ensure isotropic lateral and axial nanometer resolution. After the acquisition, we will segment and extract information on cell motion and morphology using a feature detector framework based on the Hessian difference of Gaussian in combination with the watershed algorithm. The feature detector has been validated to separate adjacent clustered cells in 3D undergoing rapid motion with high sensitivity. In addition, we will further train our segmented cell images for deep-learning network and use for automatic segmentation and tracking. The proposed microscopic technology will enable the quantitative characterization of cellular behavior effectively in arbitrary FOV.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $390,000 )
2025	2025	UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON	701 S NEDDERMAN DR	ARLINGTON	TX	76019	TARRANT	USA	Biomedical Research and Research Training	000	3	8/7/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$390,000
														Subtotal = $390,000

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $390,000 )
2024	2024	UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON	701 S NEDDERMAN DR	ARLINGTON	TX	76019	TARRANT	USA	Biomedical Research and Research Training	000	2	8/9/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$390,000
														Subtotal = $390,000

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $375,440 )
2023	2023	THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON	701 S. NEDDERMAN DR	ARLINGTON	TX	76019	TARRANT	USA	Biomedical Research and Research Training	000	1	9/14/2023	NEW	$375,440
														Subtotal = $375,440

Grand Total All Awards = $1,155,440

Top

All Categories

About

Search

Reports

Data Submission

Award Information

High spatiotemporal optical imaging to study dynamics of 3D cell motion and behavior in living organisms

Award Number: R35GM150947

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF GENERAL MEDICAL SCIENCES

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 09/15/2023

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 08/31/2028

Federal Websites

Department of Health & Human Services

HHS Operating Divisions

HHS Staff Divisions

Download A Document Viewer