Canada-UK AI 2019 : Self-guided microrobots for automated brain dissection

加拿大-英国 AI 2019：用于自动大脑解剖的自引导微型机器人

• 批准号: 548593-2019
• 负责人: Wheeler, Aaron
• 金额: $ 12.63万
• 依托单位: University of Toronto
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Alliance Grants
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=719312
• 关键词: Canada; UK; AI; 2019; Self

Neural precursor cells (NPCs) are neural stem cells and their progeny, which are multipotent, self-renewing cells that are responsible for building the fundamental components of the vertebrate central nervous system during embryonic development. Notably, NPCs persist into the mature brain as very rare cells that continue to generate new neurons throughout the lifetime of the organism. Intensive study of these precious cells could lead to a watershed moment in the field of neurobiology and the development of regenerative therapies to treat Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and traumatic brain injury. However, our ability to harness the therapeutic potential of NPCs is limited by the practical difficulty of identifying and collecting them for analysis. Current methods require painstaking manual microdissection of neural tissue followed by cell sorting methods which, in addition to requiring large samples sizes (and thus large quantities of tissue) also often fail to distinguish between NPCs and other cells expressing the same biomarkers. This highly interdisciplinary project brings together researchers with expertise in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, engineering and neuroscience to create a new automated microsurgical platform which will be applied to identify and collect NPCs from brain tissues. By exploiting the capacity of deep learning approaches to detect features in complex datasets we will develop two new image-guided microsurgery tools: a microrobotic resector capable of carefully excising the small region of brain tissue (the SVZ) within which NPCs are found and microrobotic cell collector, capable of efficiently harvesting individual cells for further study and analysis using a coordinated array of optoelectronic microrobots. When then aim to integrate these two systems into a single, unique robotic microsurgery platform.The new system will be applied to collect and analyse NPCs from different brain tissues. In particular, we propose to analyse the sex-dependent differences in NPCs phenotypes, which have been reported in previous research. As well as transforming our capacity for collection of NPCs and likewise supporting the development of new regenerative therapies, we believe this approach will provide a powerful new method for a wide range of microsurgery applications. Altogether, we will use these results to simulate debate among the related engineering, scientific and wider public communities to shape anew international multi-disciplinary network focusing on challenges with regenerative medicine i.e. providing new case studies for govt. policy and further investment for AI-driven healthcare applications.

神经前体细胞（NPC）是神经干细胞及其后代，它们是多能自我更新细胞，负责在胚胎发育过程中构建脊椎动物中枢神经系统的基本成分。值得注意的是，NPC持续到成熟的大脑中，因为非常稀有的细胞在整个生物体的一生中继续产生新的神经元。对这些珍贵细胞的深入研究可能导致神经生物学领域的流域时刻，并开发再生疗法，以治疗阿尔茨海默氏病，痴呆和脑损伤。但是，我们利用NPC的治疗潜力的能力受到识别和收集它们进行分析的实际困难的限制。当前的方法需要对神经组织进行艰苦的手动显微解剖，然后是细胞分选方法，除了需要大型样品大小（因此需要大量的组织）外，通常也无法区分NPC和其他表达相同生物标记物的细胞。这个高度跨学科的项目将具有人工智能专业知识（AI），机器人技术，工程和神经科学专业知识的研究人员汇集在一起​​，以创建一个新的自动化显微外科平台，该平台将用于识别和从脑组织中识别和收集NPC。通过利用深度学习方法检测复杂数据集中特征的能力，我们将开发两个新的图像引导的微型外科手术工具：一个微生物分辨率，能够仔细切除发现NPC的小区域（SVZ），并在其中找到NPC和微生物细胞收集器，能够有效地收集单个细胞，以进一步研究和分析coororcy opticor coorect coorectronic orical coorderoncorect rayer rays ray ray ray coorelyarearears。当时，将这两个系统集成到一个独特的机器人微型外科手术平台中。新系统将用于收集和分析来自不同脑组织的NPC。特别是，我们建议分析NPCS表型的性别依赖性差异，这在先前的研究中已经报道。除了改变我们收集NPC的能力并同样支持新再生疗法的开发之外，我们相信这种方法将为广泛的微手术应用提供强大的新方法。总的来说，我们将使用这些结果来模拟相关工程，科学和更广泛的公共社区之间的辩论，以塑造重新的国际多学科网络，重点介绍了再生医学的挑战，即为政府提供新的案例研究。对AI驱动的医疗保健应用的政策和进一步投资。