Project description
Innovative and accessible virtual tissue staining technology
Tissue staining is used to highlight structural elements and features of interest, enhancing details for monitoring and research. Chemical staining of cell components has been essential in pharmaceutical and biomedical research and development. However, chemical staining is often toxic to cells and involves significant time, labour, and expense. Virtual tissue staining using deep learning offers a promising alternative, but costly tools have limited its accessibility. The ERC-funded IFLAI project aims to develop an innovative technology that integrates a simple optical system with deep-learning-powered virtual staining software, reducing costs and improving accessibility for researchers.
Objective
Our goal is to create a virtual tissue-staining device to replace manual chemical-staining techniques by integrating optics and deep
learning.
Chemical staining of cell components plays an essential role in biomedical and pharmaceutical research and practice. Cell structures
of interest are highlighted using various chemical stains and imaged with the appropriate optical setup. However, these techniques
are often invasive and sometimes even toxic to the cells, in addition to being time consuming, labor intensive, and expensive.
Recently, the use of deep learning has been proposed as a way to create images of virtually stained cell structures, thus mitigating the
inherent problems associated with the conventional chemical staining. However, these methods are usually specialized for a specific
application and, thus, highly dependent on the setting of the optical device used for acquiring the training data.
In order to make virtual tissue-staining more accessible to end-users, we propose a device based on a simple optical system with an
integrated deep-learning-powered virtual-staining software.
This is an ideal moment to enter the virtual tissue-staining market because we can gain a first mover advantage. Further, we can take
advantage of the fact that the tissue-staining market is expected to grow with a compound annual rate of roughly 8.5% until 2025 (up
to 3400M USD), and to continue to grow for the foreseeable future.
As part of this project, we aim to launch the startup company IFLAI to commercially exploit our virtual-staining technology and the
prototype we will develop. With the startup IFLAI, we aim to provide ~20 jobs to university-educated individuals in the EU within the
next 5 years. IFLAI has already received initial funding and support from two different organisations that support and believe in its
venture.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2022-POC2
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
405 30 Goeteborg
Sweden
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.