What can we do about the coronavirus

[yxdragon (Yan)]

Hello everyone:

This is not a question about image analysis, I think many member in this forum is biological researcher or doing something related. As coronavirus is prevalent all around the world. I want to known what can we do?

I am not a biological researcher, but a image analysis hobbyist. I know it is not a simple problem about image analysis, But if image analysis may help, I wish some work can be published in this forum. And If some researchers are doing sdutying about this field, I wish we can share the result here.

In fact, as chinese, I am isolated as a suspected patient in 2020 feb. fortunately I am ok. At that time I want to pop a topic about this, but I am a little shy for I think it is a problem about my country, but now It is a problem about the world. So I wish I can do something.

@ctrueden, It seems that you are the leader of imagej, are you a member in NHI?
@sofroniewn, is CZI doing something about this? and what can we help?

[joshmoore]

A few links for efforts you or others might potentially want to get involved in:

• https://github.com/virtual-biohackathons/covid-19-bh20/wiki
• https://discourse.data-against-covid.org
• https://discourse.covid-oss-help.org/

[haesleinhuepf (Robert Haase)]

I tried to find projects related to covid-19 and image analysis and it’s very hard. Maybe it’s the time of the nurses and doctors and rather not the time for image analysts.

However, there is something we can do: I have the feeling that more people do image analysis these days and more people do online courses right now as they are in isolation and cannot do experiments in the lab. Thus, I spend more time here in the forum to support them.

I’m wondering if the usage statistics of the forum supports my feeling though… Are there more site visits these days?

[emartini (Emanuele Martini)]

I am also in for help in coronavirus field.
But I agree with @haesleinhuepf I think it’s still not time for us, in my opinion.
At the moment it’s virologists, epidemiologists and doctors and nurses time I think.

But I know this website, and I’ve joined it

Crowdfight COVID-19

have a nice day from Milano,
and stay safe
Emanuele Martini

[sofroniewn (Nicholas Sofroniew)]

Hi @yxdragon thanks for making this topic and sharing your experiences with coronavirus. I’m glad you’re doing ok. Coronavirus is truly is a global problem now, and it’s been inspiring to see the worlds scientific communities rally together to share information and help each other during this difficult time.

@haesleinhuepf

Maybe it’s the time of the nurses and doctors and rather not the time for image analysts.

However, there is something we can do: I have the feeling that more people do image analysis these days and more people do online courses right now as they are in isolation and cannot do experiments in the lab. Thus, I spend more time here in the forum to support them.

I agree with @haesleinhuepf here and I like his suggestion of spending more time in the forum helping people with image analysis.

I did briefly see some efforts to detect covid-19 in lung scans, but there is quite some debate about that work. I’m not sure if there are people in the cell biology community trying to do any mechanistic research around coronavirus infection that need image analysis help, but trying to surface those needs could be valuable. I know there have been efforts to leverage single cell RNA sequencing to look a immune cells in covid-19 and there are over 1000 preprints on COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 preprints from medRxiv and bioRxiv now online. Those preprints might be a could place to look for researchers that could benefit from bioimage analysis support.

CZI as an organization is doing work to support the fight against covid-19, you can read about some of it in this press release, but currently none of the work is specifically leveraging bioimage analysis.

Stay safe and take care,
Nick