Research Overview

Affiliated with UCSD’s Center for Research in Biological Systems (CRBS), the NCMIR is a recognized authority in the development and application of technologies for high throughput multi-scale imaging and analysis of biological systems at the mesoscale, the dimensional range spanning 5 nm3 and 50µm3. Macromolecules, organelles, and multi-component structures like synapses which are encompassed in this dimensional range have traditionally been challenging to study because they fall in the resolution gap between X-ray crystallography at one end and medical imaging at the other.

Building on multiple decades of technology development and support for research in neurobiology, NCMIR is supported as a BRAIN Technology Integration and Dissemination ResourceNCMIR also conducts research that addresses the cellular and molecular underpinnings of biological systems relevant to cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, to name a few.

NCMIR welcomes requests for projects requiring the specialized application of advanced technologies, including:

    • chemical and genetic probes, labeling technologies, and methods for correlative, multiscale light, x-ray, and electron microscopy;
    • specimen-preparation methods for correlative, multiscale – multimodal imaging;
    • instrumentation and resources for multiscale, multimodal imaging; and 
    • scalable tools and information technologies for data refinement, integration, and analysis.

NCMIR also maintains a strong research program in computational biology and informatics through affiliated projects. As a leader in the development of informatics resources for microscopic imaging information, NCMIR makes the Cell Image Library (CIL) available to the scientific community. NCMIR also plays a key role in and is associated with the Center for Research in Biological Systems (CRBS) at UCSD. It is a significant domain driver of the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology (Cal-IT2) and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC).