‘Etch A Cell – Demolition Squad’: a first look at the data!

On 23^rd May 2023 the Etch A Cell team launched their latest project: ‘Etch A Cell – Demolition Squad’. Through this project, researchers based at the Francis Crick Institute in London are teaming up with Zooniverse volunteers to study ‘lysosomes’; balloon shaped organelles that function as the cell’s digestive system. In the two images shared above, we give you a sneak peak of some of the data produced by Zooniverse volunteers who’ve been helping advance lysosomal research by ‘segmenting’ (drawing around) these organelles.

The two images we share show the lysosomes labelled with fluorescent pink dye on the left, and the collective segmentations of the Zooniverse volunteers in green on the right. As you can see, you’ve done a brilliant job outlining these lysosomes. This is just one image from a huge stack, so our next step will be looking at all the data together.

With thanks to Francis Crick Institute internship student Fatihat Ajayi for generating these images.