The German Research Foundation (DFG) today approved 18 new Research Training Groups and extended ten others. These include the interdisciplinary Research Training Group on Imaging in the Life Sciences with FIAS participation.

The interdisciplinary graduate school “Interfacing Image Analysis and Molecular Life Science” (iMOL) can continue its work for another 4.5 years. The college at Goethe University has been training young scientists at the interface of life sciences and computer science since 2020 with the participation of the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics and FIAS.

At iMOL, modern microscopy techniques are optimized in a multidisciplinary approach. Thanks to developments in light and electron microscopy, image data sets are now gigantic, extremely rich in information and challenging to analyze. The research program combines image analysis with the molecular life sciences. Graduates in computer science, physics and biology analyze the image data in tissues down to macromolecules over large spatio-temporal scales at different resolutions. Algorithms must be developed and images analyzed in order to interpret the images. Interdisciplinary skills are required for a coherent, effective and successful doctorate.

At FIAS, Senior Fellow Matthias Kaschube is involved in the graduate school. “iMOL is thematically very close to the recently approved SCALE Cluster of Excellence,” emphasizes Kaschube. The quantitative analysis of microscopic imaging data often begins with the extraction of certain features such as the position or speed of cells or subcellular connections. Integrating this information into a larger-scale organization and its dynamic reorganization is a challenge. The groups use deep learning models to uncover more global, higher-level features that can characterize structural variations in a biological system as a whole.

Graduate schools offer doctoral students the opportunity to complete a doctorate in a structured research and qualification program at a high professional level. The DFG currently funds a total of 214 graduate schools.

more information