01 Nov Morgridge helping build a multinational bio-imaging community
Neuronal forest by Marko Pende from the BINA 2023 Image Contest
If there is one constant in biology, it’s the need for precise, robust imaging. From the first microscopes created in the 17th century, capable of magnifying an object to 30 times its normal size, continuous advances in biomedical imaging have driven a spectacular new understanding of life.
Now, a program housed at the Morgridge Institute for Research is dedicated to helping biomedical imaging scientists better understand one another and the technologies they develop and utilize.
BioImaging North America (BINA) was created as a 501(c)3 non-profit by a group of like-minded volunteers in 2018, during a national “Frontiers of Microscopy” conference held at the Virginia-based Janelia Research Campus. Its capabilities grew greatly in 2020, when the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) awarded BINA its first grant led by Kevin Eliceiri, BINA Co-Chair and Morgridge biomedical imaging investigator, funding two full-time staff members to organize programs across Canada, the United States and Mexico. The grant had broad participation across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico including leadership efforts from Eliceiri’s fellow BINA co-chairs Alison North of The Rockefeller University and Claire Brown of McGill University.
Eliceiri is a UW-Madison professor of biomedical engineering and medical physics, and long-standing champion of the need to support imaging experts in the professional community. His lab is active in open-source hardware and open-source image analysis software and supported by a vibrant virtual community on the Image.sc Forum.
CZI in fall 2023 renewed its support for BINA, which has now grown to more than 1,200 members from across the globe, including 200 core imaging facilities in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. In 2022 alone, more than 350 new members joined, and that number has already been matched in 2023.