Etch a Cell

✨ Thanks for sharing a little about yourself, your research and your beautiful birds Virginie! ✨

A woman reading a book with two cockatiels perched on her right shoulder

❓Our most important question, do you have a pet?

💬 My two beloved cockatiels, Stuart and Rosie, who have been filling my days with whistles and songs for the past 9 years.

Alpine mountain scene with a cascade and people walking towards it

❓Tell us more about you

💬 When I am not in front of my computer, I either spend time in the mountains or with my birds.

A 3D volumetric rendering of an immune cell segmented from an electron microscopy volume

❓What excites you most about your research?

💬 Although it is effortless to make sense of an image that we see, it is usually ridiculously hard to write a computer program that would do the same...so working on image analysis makes me reflect everyday on how beautifully complex human vision is!

A screenshot of Python code

❓How are you involved in Etch A Cell?

💬 I am leading the development of automated image analysis methods that use the annotations you all provide in the Etch A Cell - ImmunoExplorers project!

A selfie of a woman with glasses at a desk in front of a computer

❓Who are you, where do you work and what do you do?

💬 Hello! I'm Dr Virginie Uhlmann. I am a Research Group Leader at EMBL-EBI and the Director of the BioVisionCenter at the University of Zurich. In my work, I develop methods to turn visual information present in microscopy images into numbers

🔬 Behind the Microscope at Etch A Cell 🔬

This week, meet Virginie, a researcher who works with the Etch A Cell - ImmunoExplorers project, and who focuses on bioimage analysis 🧬🔬🧫

#Zooniverse #CitizenScience #SciComm #ScienceForAll

🔬 Deja would 100% get a piece of cheese from us at Etch A Cell 🙌

Thanks Paolo for sharing your work and your pup with us!

Deja enjoying the sun

❓Our most important question, do you have a pet?

💬 I have a rescue dog. Her name is Deja and she is 3 years old. She is very social and would do anything for a piece of cheese

A selfie of Paolo in cycling gears

❓Tell us more about you

💬 When I am not in the lab, I like cycling in the hills around Heidelberg

❓What excites you most about your research?

💬 I love working in a service facility, where every day we are approached by different people with diverse biological questions and we have to find the best way to address them.

This is the serial block face scanning electron microscope (SBF-SEM) which is producing the volume EM images for the project

❓How are you involved in Etch A Cell?

💬 I have helped with electron microscopy imaging of the samples.

This image shows Paolo Ronchi

❓Who are you, where do you work and what do you do?

💬 I am Paolo Ronchi. I work as a staff scientist in the Electron Microscopy Core Facility of the EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany. My main expertise is volume electron microscopy and correlative imaging.

🔬 Behind the Microscope at Etch A Cell 🔬

This week, meet Paolo, a staff scientist at EMBL in Heidelberg 🧬🔬🧫

#Zooniverse #CitizenScience #SciComm #ScienceForAll

🔬 That’s a wrap - many thanks to Alana for sharing her insights, work and Panda the cat with us! 🙌

Panda enjoying a well-earned break on a warm lap

❓We love pets! Tell us more about Panda

💬This is Panda, she was terrified of life when we first adopted her from a shelter but has blossomed into a very loving, cuddly, cat who believes that she should be treated like a queen.

A photo of seedlings in my cold frame and young plants in the process of being potted

❓Tell us more about you

💬 I love animals and nature. One of my favourite pastimes is growing plants in my garden accompanied by my rescue cat named Panda

Panda (my cat) helping to select areas of kidney tissue to image by electron microscopy

❓What excites you most about your research?

💬 I love being part of such an enthusiastic team, from multiple countries, all working together to develop new workflows for multimodal imaging and to increase understanding of cellular interactions which contribute to diseases of transplanted kidneys

A biopsy being photographed using a dissection microscope which helps allows me to cut it into smaller pieces and catalogue the appearance of each piece.

❓How are you involved in Etch A Cell?

💬 I work on a few areas of this project: providing chemicals to fix the biopsies, cataloging and slicing the biopsies, performing light microscopy imaging and analysis, preparing samples for electron microscopy, and aligning the electron microscopy data

A black and white photo of Alana

❓Who are you, where do you work and what do you do?

💬 My name is Alana Burrell. I work in the Electron Microscopy Platform at the Francis Crick Institute. I image cells and tissues using light and electron microscopes

🔬 Behind the Microscope at Etch A Cell 🔬

We’re featuring some of the team who work behind the scenes at Etch A Cell. This week, meet Alana, an Electron Microscopist who works at The Francis Crick Institute 🧪🧠✨

#Zooniverse #CitizenScience #SciComm #ScienceForAll

This image shows a screen grab of the Etch A Cell - ImmunoExplorers project page. You can see images of cells and the statistics mentioned in the post.

Project Update: More than 1,000 volunteers have made 40,000+ classifications—an incredible milestone! 🙌

Thank you to everyone contributing to #EtchACell.

Every click helps advance research.

Join us: www.zooniverse.org/projects/h-s...

#CitizenScience

🧠 Did you know April is #CitizenScienceMonth?

We're celebrating the amazing volunteers behind Etch A Cell! 💪 You're helping accelerate biomedical research—thank you! 🧫✨

Join us: www.zooniverse.org/projects/h-s...

#Zooniverse #EtchACell #CellBiology #CitizenScience

This is a screenshot of the project's landing page, showing the statistics quoted in the tweet - 688 volunteers have made 23,474 classifications

What an incredible first week for Etch A Cell - ImmunoExplorers! 🚀

✨ 688 volunteers have together contributed 23,474 classifications (and counting!), helping us reach 72% completion of our first dataset.

Join the effort here: 🔗 www.zooniverse.org/projects/h-s...

Thank you 🙌 #CitizenScience

This image shows most of the Etch A Cell - ImmunoExplorers project team at a Christmas Market

Be a part of groundbreaking research!

🔬 Help us study immune cells & fight transplant rejection:

www.zooniverse.org/projects/h-s...

Together, we can make a difference! 💪 #CitizenScience #KidneyHealth #Zooniverse

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This image is an illustration showing multiple people contributing to the Zooniverse platform projects. 'Zooniverse' is written in the middle of the image

This project is part of Zooniverse, a platform for citizen science.

By taking part, you’ll help advance analysis of immune cell behaviour—work that could one day help improve kidney transplant success rates. ❤️

Join in the discovery!

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This image shows the classification interface for Etch A Cell - ImmunoExplorers. There is an image of kidney tissue on the left hand side and an interface on the right where you can select a box tool to mark up any immune cells in the image

That’s where you come in!

We need volunteers to spot immune cells in microscope images. No experience needed—just curiosity!

Your efforts will help advance research 🔬

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This image shows two immune cells in a kidney capillary. The immune cells each have a green box around them

There's a lot we still don’t know about immune cells in rejection:

❓ Which immune cells are there?
❓ Are they activated?
❓ What are they doing?

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Kidney disease affects 11% of people worldwide.

A transplant can be lifesaving, but sometimes the recipient’s immune system attacks the new kidney—this is transplant rejection, a major barrier to successful treatment.

We want to improve understanding of this.

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This shows the project landing page for Etch A Cell - ImmunoExplorers. It is an image of a cell and over the top is written 'We need your help to study immune cells in kidney tissue!'

Join Etch A Cell – ImmunoExplorers, a citizen science project studying immune cells in kidneys.

Your help can speed up research

🔬 Get involved:

www.zooniverse.org/projects/h-s...

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