Services

MIDA.science offers comprehensive assistance in the design and execution of microscopy experiments and image and data analysis, and helps you find the optimal balance between them to fully unleash the potential of your quantitative microscopy experiments. Read about my Microscopy, Image Analysis, and Data Analysis services, and How to contract a service with MIDA.science.

Microscopy

I excel in fluorescence microscopy techniques, from confocal to wide-field microscopy, with a particular emphasis on quantitative methods such as localization microscopy, FRAP (Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching) microscopy, TIRF (Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence) microscopy, differential evanescence field nanometry (Merrifield, et al., 2002; Merrifield, et al., 2005, Saffarian, et al., 2008), and microscopy automation and computer vision for high throughput of rare events. I can assist you with everything from the planning of such experiments, such as sample preparation and genomic engineering or the optimization of the microscope light path, to the development of dedicated software or the execution of the imaging itself.

Differential evanescence field imaging of endocytosis in S. cerevisiae. In green is an endocytic coat marker, Sla1, tagger with EGFP. In magenta  is an actin crosslinker, Sac6, tagged with mCherry. From left to right: bright field image, wide-field movie (WF), and TIRF movies on the green and red channels acquired simultaneously with a Hamamatsu Gemini beam splitter. The disappearance of the green spot in TIRF, but not in WF, marks the beginning of the coat internalisation (Picco, et al., 2024). Movie plays 7x faster.

Optical tickling of F. alba invasive collectives, imaged in bright field (Toret, et al., 2022). Scale bar is 25 μm.

Image Analysis

I can assist you in choosing, adapting, or developing image analysis solutions that best suit your experiment goals. Moreover, Image analysis is not a magic tool that outputs quantitative information from any image. It is intimately linked to the imaging process. My experience with microscopy will help you optimize the planning of your imaging experiment to maximize the quality of the image analysis quantitative output.

Centroid tracking of an endocytic coat marker (Sla1) tagged with EGFP and imaged as a diffraction limited spot in wide-field microscopy. Sla1 dynamic acts as a proxy for the endocytic invagination growth (Picco, et al., 2015). The CLEM image on the right shows a mature endocytic invagination for comparison (Kukulski, et al., 2012). Scale bar is 100 nm and applies to both images.

Data Analysis

I have extensive experience in data analysis and statistics solutions to interpret measurements. In addition, the quality of a quantitative experiment, such as the noise of the measurements or the possible systematic errors, and its goals, such as the significance aimed at, are intimately linked to the quality of the data analysis. I will help you to carefully plan the imaging experiment and its image analysis to optimize the data analysis and reach its goals.

Maximum Likelihood Estimate (MLE) of the probability distribution P describing the separation of centroid positions of diffraction limited objects imaged by fluorescence microscopy (Churchmann, et al., 2006). This MLE was used to determine the true separation μ between proximal fluorophores. The MLE was computed on the coreset (red histogram) of the original dataset (grey histogram) to estimate the separation between distinct fluorophores imaged in close proximity (Picco, et al., 2017).

How to contract a service

You can choose between two formats of collaboration: service based, or contractual.

Service-based consulting is ideal for addressing a specific topic. It results in an invoice based on the number of hours required to achieve the desired goal, which can be agreed upon in advance.

Pros: This form of collaboration may be the easiest to fund through research grants.

Cons: It offers little adaptability.

Contractual consulting involves an agreement for a set number of hours to be distributed over a period of time according to specific needs. For example, one hundred hours could be allocated over a year across activities such as advice and planning, assistance with imaging, coding, or statistics. This arrangement is ideal for ambitious research projects requiring flexibility to adapt to evolving needs, which may be difficult to predict.

Pros: It offers maximum flexibility and can be more cost-effective than service-based invoices. It can also be conveniently arranged at the end of a financial year to make use of unspent funds.

Cons: It may be more complicated to pay for, depending on the various grant rules.

Contact MIDA.science

MIDA.science’s flier