Science Digest Chalk Talk: "Image analysis and image-based phenotyping in biology"

Katarzyna Bozek, Group Leader (Stephens Unit)

Can we obtain a quantitative understanding of the behavior of molecular systems?

In ethology, a study of animal behavior, distinct actions or states of individuals are categorized by observers and include e.g. feeding, fighting, or mating. On a molecular level, several behaviors of cells are distinguishable to a human observer. These comprise division, apoptosis, motility, or shape changes specific to biophysical conditions in a tissue. However, unlike the aim-driven actions of the morphologically rigid organisms, forces driving cell movements and shape changes are less well understood.

In this chalk talk, I will present ideas inspired by the nascent field of physics of behavior – field exploring quantitative ways of representing behavior – in application to molecular systems. The combination of the emerging way to comprehensively study behavior with the new machine learning methods to extract information from images open new opportunities to better understand the patterns in dynamics of molecular systems.