Mathematical and Computational Challenges in Cryogenic Electron Microscopy (Cryo-EM)

Advances in Cryo-electron Microscopy (Cryo-EM) have for the past few years revolutionized our understanding of biological 3D structures, illustrated by the Nobel Prize of Chemistry awarded in 2017 for the discovery of the technique, and the explosive rate at which new protein 3D structures are now determined, with important applications in medicine and drug discovery. This unprecedented surge of new biological data yields various mathematical problems in geometry and image analysis, that also find close connections with machine learning, statistics and physics. This workshop will cover the modeling and theory in Cryo-EM, with a focus on deep generative models and advanced methods for single particle reconstruction and heterogeneity analysis. Upon inviting experts, including method developers and practitioners to present their work, and providing practical coding sessions to get familiar with computational tools and advanced methods in machine learning, our goal is to open up new exciting areas for interdisciplinary research in the field.

The workshop will be organized into a two-day meeting. The first day will feature several presentations from students, researchers, and professors, with a panel of experts invited to discuss the present and future of the field. The second day will be a hackathon led by Dr. Nina Miolane (Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Santa Barbara), focusing on the development and practical use of tools for computational Single Particle Imaging library developed by the co-organizers ( https://github.com/compSPI ). This second day is open to a wide range of students and scientists, from beginners to advanced users, to complete a one-day project; but it will be limited to a maximum number of 15 students (details will be sent approximately one month before the workshop, to the selected participants; for those interested you can contact Nina Miolane at ninamiolane@ucsb.edu ).

Schedule:

Download the workshop schedule here.