Quality Assessment & Quality Control - The needs and efforts of stakeholders in the light microscopy community

Session

QUAREP-LiMi: An International Collaboration for Microscope Quality Control

Authors

Dr. Roland Nitschke (1)

Affiliations

1. University of Freiburg, Life Imaging Center and Signalling Research Centres CIBSS and BIOSS

Keywords

light microscopy, quality assessment, quality control, instrument metadata, image metadata

Abstract text

This talk gives an overview of the motivation, current status, needs, and efforts of the initiative “Quality Assessment and Reproducibility for Instruments & Images in Light Microscopy (QUAREP-LiMi). Achievements and specific projects worked out and ongoing in QUAREP-LiMi will be highlighted.

In April 2020, QUAREP-LiMi was founded by about 50 enthusiastic light microscopists from Academia and Industry. By now, the number of members has grown to about 480 from 34 countries, with stakeholders including researchers, imaging core facility staff, imaging equipment and software manufacturers, and observers from standardization organizations, funding agencies, and journals.

Researchers are one of the key stakeholders because they rely on imaging data to achieve and support their research findings. Imaging core facility staff is critical in providing researchers access to well-maintained state-of-the-art imaging equipment and the necessary expertise to optimize the usage of the instrument and image quality and resultant output.

About 30% of the stakeholders in QUAREP-LiMi are manufacturers of imaging equipment or software, as they stand to benefit from improved standards and guidelines for image acquisition and analysis. By promoting best practices in image acquisition and analysis, they can increase the reliability and reproducibility of their instruments, which can, in turn, increase customer satisfaction. The collaboration with standardization organizations improves the implementation of the worked-out results into industry-accepted protocols and standards

Funding agencies are interested in ensuring that the research they support is of high quality and reproducible. Journal editors are also invested in ensuring that the data published in their journals is of high quality and can be reproduced by others.

The community needs the QUAREP-LiMi initiative because the quality and reproducibility of imaging data are critical for scientific progress. Poor-quality or irreproducible data can lead to wasted resources, time, and effort and hinder scientific advancement. By promoting best practices in image acquisition and analysis, the QUAREP-LiMi initiative can help to improve the quality and reproducibility of imaging data, thereby facilitating scientific progress.

References

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Boehm U, Nelson G, ...+ 24 authors.., Nitschke R. QUAREP-LiMi: a community endeavor to advance quality assessment and reproducibility in light microscopy. Nat Methods 18(12):1423-1426 (2021), doi: 10.1038/s41592-021-01162-x

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