Reviews & Analysis

A light-sheet microscope that automatically corrects optical aberrations enables quantitative imaging of deep tissue.

The generation of oocytes in a dish from mouse pluripotent cells may be difficult to replicate with human cells.

Modern biological research increasingly relies on image data as a primary source of information in unraveling the cellular and molecular mechanisms of life. The quantity and complexity of the data generated by state-of-the-art microscopes preclude visual or manual analysis and require advanced computational methods to fully explore the wealth of information. In addition to making bioimage analysis more efficient, objective, and reproducible, the use of computers improves the accuracy and sensitivity of the analyses and helps to reveal subtleties that may be unnoticeable to the human eye. Many methods and software tools have already been developed to this end, but there is still a long way to go before biologists can blindly trust automated measurements. Here, we summarize the current state of the art in bioimage analysis and provide a perspective on likely future developments.

Altering the hardwired stoichiometry of central metabolism in yeast enables efficient synthesis of the isoprenoid β-farnesene.

An array of microfluidic cantilevers measures the mass of single cells in a population over time and detects drug-induced changes in cell growth.

Enhancer cytometry outperforms gene expression profiling in identifying hematopoietic cell subtypes.

Computational methods for analyzing single-cell data are uncovering new ways of defining cells.

The experimental and computational tools that enable continuous imaging of single cells for days and weeks have advanced rapidly in recent years, and solutions to current limitations are on the horizon.

Engineering bacteria to convert carbon dioxide into sugar may enable diverse biotechnological applications.

An atlas of targeted mass spectrometry coordinates provides a starting point for measuring the unmodified human proteome.

Improved expansion microscopy provides a super-resolution method that is accessible to any laboratory with a fluorescence microscope.

An antigen-specific cell therapy for autoimmune disease avoids compromising immunity as a whole.

The unique capabilities of CRISPR technologies have enabled a broad range of applications in biomedicine and agriculture.