It takes a dedicated chunk of time to agree on a system for making sense of everybody's fruit fly brain images.

Lock them in a room, give them plenty of caffeine, and let them have at it. Well, it wasn't that draconian, but an international group of "hackers"—so named for their ability to find their way through a morass of code—did put in an energetic two weeks this summer at Janelia Farm Research Campus to hash out a way to compare anatomic images of the Drosophila brain. It sounds simple enough, but considering the variety of microscopes in use, each run by its own particular software, and the variety of scientific approaches, each covering different degrees of detail, the prospect was fairly daunting. Yet, the group devised the basis for a file-sharing system for importing and exporting digital images across microscope platforms. Ultimately, the goal is a "brain morphing" software program that lets researchers orient themselves within the fly brain and reliably compare measurements. Plans for Hackathon II are in the works.

		Mark Longair University of Edinburgh Scotland A neuroinformaticist, Longair develops tools to extract neural connectivity information from stacks of three-dimensional images of the fly brain produced by confocal microscopy.
		Stephan Saalfeld Max Planck Institute Dresden, Germany A computer science student with expertise in image processing, visualization, and the creation of Web applications, Saalfeld is currently interested in aligning consecutive microscopy slices in three dimensions.
		Stephan Preibisch Max Planck Institute Dresden, Germany Preibisch is a computer scientist focused on image processing, statistics, and pattern recognition. He says a personal highlight from the workshop was "the completion of my fast 2-D and 3-D stitching algorithm."
		Arnim Jenett Janelia Farm Research Campus Ashburn, Virginia Jenett is a neurobiologist interested in understanding "where functions are located in the Drosophila brain" and how it processes information. He is constructing an atlas of the fly brain correlating function and anatomy.

Photos: Paul Fetters

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