One-pot shotgun cell biology

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Michael Knop; Professor Dr. Björn Ommer
• Subject Area: Biophysics ; Image and Language Processing, Computer Graphics and Visualisation, Human Computer Interaction, Ubiquitous and Wearable Computing ; Bioinformatics and Theoretical Biology ; Biomedical Systems Technology ; Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas ; Cell Biology
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 371923335

Public Abstract - High throughput approaches are critical for systems biology. In this project we will develop new tools, instruments and algorithms for high throughput biology and the functional characterization of cellular proteomes. CRISPR/Cas is used to generate genome wide resources of clonal lines with gene-specific genomic modifications, e.g. gene deletions or fusion to fluorescent proteins. High throughput fluorescence imaging, cell sorting along with semi-supervised as well as unsupervised deep learning algorithms will be used to functionally group cell populations, to characterize complex cell mixtures and to derive functional information.The work will be performed in a collaboration of a group in molecular cell biology and instrumentation and a computer vision group. We will develop new fluorescence microscopic devices and algorithms for on-line image based cellular analysis. We will test and use the developed instruments and methods in an initial experimental study where we seek to localize as many as possible of the so far un-detected yeast proteins by employing new fluorescent proteins. With this we will complement the yeast protein localization atlas and provide a base for comprehensive analysis of the species-specific proteome.The study will also serve as a paradigm for future work in single cell analytics and with mammalian cell lines.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants