Report on the participation in GLOBAL BIOIMAGING, Exchange of Experience

Naoto Ueno (National Institute for Basic Biology)

I participated in GLOBAL BIOIMAGING, Exchange of Experience, organized by European Molecular Biology Laboratory（EMBL）in Heidelberg, Germany from June 8, 2016 to June 10, 2016. The three-day international conference aims to exchange ideas based on the performance and experience on the operation and management of bioimaging core facilities.

Program organizer: EuroBioImaging

Participants from Japan:
Naoto Ueno (National Institute for Basic Biology)
Mizuki Shimanuki (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University)
Shuichi Onami (The RIKEN, Quantitative Biology Center)

Report:

Photo taken in front of EMBL Advanced Training Centre
(Onami and Shimanuki)

EuroBioImaging is a network of bioimaging core facilities based in Europe. Having obtained the budget to operate in AY 2015, it started its full-fledged operations in AY 2016. To expand its network from Europe to other countries such as the U.S.A, India, Australia, Argentina and Japan, “GLOBAL BIOIMAGING - Exchange of Experience I” Workshop” was held in Heidelberg, Germany from June 8, 2016 to June 10, 2016.

I participated in the workshop as a representative of Japan since National Institute for Basic Biology, my affiliation, has organized a series of discussion meetings to solve the problems which bioimaging-related facilities in Japan have and form a domestic network for sharing optical microscopes, electron microscopes and other instruments. In addition, National Institute of Natural Sciences, the umbrella organization NIBB continues the international cooperation with EMBL based on the international collaboration agreement. Our main aim was to introduce the present status of Japanese bioimaging network based on Advanced Bioimaging Support (ABiS), and to discuss the future international collaboration.

Dr. Onami (RIKEN) and Dr. Shimanuki (OIST) also joined the meeting to collect the updated information about their specialties. Dr. Onami serves as a member in General Management Group in ABiS (Advanced Bioimaging Support), and he collected information on the current and future aspects of bioimage informatics including data-mining in large-scale and large- volume image data as well as the image data storage and sharing among researchers.
Dr. Shimanuki is a Research Partner of ABiS and is in charge of the training course. He collected information on effective management and international operation for ABiS.
The workshop was held in the conference hall (Advanced Technology Centre: ATC) of the EMBL headquarters located on the hill in Heidelberg’s suburbs.

Welcome speech by Jan Ellenberg

On the 8th, welcome speeches were given first by the organizer Jan Ellenberg (EMBL, Germany), and later John Eriksson (ÅBO Akademi, Finland), the program coordinator, addressing the objectives of the conference. After that, Teng-Leong Chew of the U.S. Janelia Research Campus (The Howard Hughes Medical Institute) introduced about the operation in its Advanced Imaging Center (AIC). In his talk, we learned their operation are joint researches in that an external researcher apply on the collaboration basis and high-level scientific proposals have been selected by examination and for successful proposals, their travel expenses are covered. Their aim was very similar to that of ABiS’s. I was impressed by AIC’s wide variety of advanced microscope lineup and generous support for the community. I had a strong impression that we should continue these information exchanges with AIC.
Later, Jan Ellenberg reported on the overview of EuroBioimaging network and current status of the preparation for the GLOBAL BIOIMAGING (GBI). Further, Miles Apperley (Australia) reported on the importance of the constructing the global network, followed by Janet Thornton (EBI, UK) ‘s report on the current status of the ELIXIR network one of whose missions is to accumulate other European large-scale databases, and set up collaborative interactions with other various databases. In the end of the session, Antje Keppler（EMBL）presented the current and future plan to construct a global network, that concluded the first day of the conference.

In the morning of the next day on the 9th, we had two concurrent sessions: one was session I titled “Training for Imaging Facility Staff” chaired by Rainer Pepperkok, and the other was session II titled “Image Data Management” chaired by Jason Swedlow. In the afternoon, the overview of the two sessions were given to the audience to discuss the future training scheme and specific measures to form an international network of Image data management.

On the 10th, we had Parallel Work Package Meetings: one was “Training for Core Facility Staff” (training programs), and the other was “Image Data Management and Analysis”. I attended “Image Data Management and Analysis” where about 20 participants in charge of image analysis training in their countries sat in a circle. We made a list of important items for the lectures in the image analysis in the training course scheduled to be organized in India (National Center for Biological Science) in autumn this year. Also we actively discussed the design and flow of the training course for the participants to effectively acquire the skills.

The three-day conference was valuable chance for us to overview of the current status and future prospects of the international bioimaging community. I thought taking advantage of this opportunity, it is essential for ABiS to be a member of GBI.

Photo with the representatives of the participating countries of bioimaging network