Finished! Looks like this project is out of data at the moment!
Another data set down, well done Etchers! We'll soon upload another set of brand new images for you to take a look at. As always, thanks for your incredible effort on our project!
Virtual reality can be used to visualize complex data. With your help, we will generate a new data set that will be used to create a new virtual reality experience
Learn moreIn this project we will be asking you to draw around a variety of different subcellular structures (organelles) from the same set of images. Each workflow will tackle a different organelle. See below for our currently active workflows!
At the moment we would like you to help us study mitochondria.
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Message from the researcher
With your help, we're going to create a new virtual reality experience that will allow scientists to (virtually!) explore the insides of cells!
Etch A Cell - VRAbout Etch A Cell - VR
We're running 'Etch A Cell - VR' to analyse images of a cancer cell. With your help, this project will generate data that will be used to help improve understanding of cell biology. One of the approaches we will use to look at the data produced will be to create a virtual reality (VR) experience. In this experience it will be possible to ‘walk around’ on the surface of the cell and then move inside to explore the inside of the cell.
In this project we need your help to study images of cells that were produced using an Electron Microscope. These microscopes use an electron beam to produce images of molecules, cells and tissues at a very high level of magnification. An important step in studying these images is called “segmentation”; this is where someone draws around structures of interest in the image, like you may have done in our other Etch A Cell projects to study the nuclear envelope or mitochondria.
We hope that these projects will advance our ability to analyse biological structures using electron microscopy and segmentation. With enough volunteer help we may be able to train computers to segment automatically. This has huge potential to help us understand biology and study disease!