This award provides funds to expand the computing and instrumentation capabilities of the Biomedical Image Processing Laboratory at the University of Minnesota Medical School to meet research needs in the area of spectrofluorometry. The facility is dedicated to the use of digital image processing and three-dimensional graphics in basic biological research. Tasks for which the new equipment will be used include two-dimensional stereology and image classification, two- and three-dimensional digitally enhanced imaging, high speed video motion analysis, and optical sectioning microscopy. The types of image analysis tools funded with this award are key to research at the forefront of modern cell biology. The current revolution in light microscopy and the vastly expanded ability of the electron microscope to provide serial sections are among the most striking spinoffs of the development of digital image reconstruction by astronomers and space scientists.
