The META tool optimizes metagenomic analyses across sequencing platforms and classifiers.

A major challenge in the field of metagenomics is the selection of the correct combination of sequencing platform and downstream metagenomic analysis algorithm, or "classifier". Here, we present the Metagenomic Evaluation Tool Analyzer (META), which produces simulated data and facilitates platform and algorithm selection for any given metagenomic use case. META-generated read data are modular, scalable, and reflect user-defined community profiles, while the downstream analysis is done using a variety of metagenomic classifiers.

Separating Touching Cells Using Pixel Replicated Elliptical Shape Models.

One of the most important and error-prone tasks in biological image analysis is the segmentation of touching or overlapping cells. Particularly for optical microscopy, including transmitted light and confocal fluorescence microscopy, there is often no consistent discriminative information to separate cells that touch or overlap. It is desired to partition touching foreground pixels into cells using the binary threshold image information only, and optionally incorporating gradient information.

Women Break an Engineering Barrier: While Other Engineering Disciplines Stumble, BME Represents a Success Story in Attracting American Women to a Male-Dominated Field.

While the field of engineering as a whole is largely male-dominated, biomedical engineering (BME) is one area poised to overturn this trend. Women in the United States were awarded only 20% of all engineering B.S.

A neuronal network of mitochondrial dynamics regulates metastasis.

The role of mitochondria in cancer is controversial. Using a genome-wide shRNA screen, we now show that tumours reprogram a network of mitochondrial dynamics operative in neurons, including syntaphilin (SNPH), kinesin KIF5B and GTPase Miro1/2 to localize mitochondria to the cortical cytoskeleton and power the membrane machinery of cell movements. When expressed in tumours, SNPH inhibits the speed and distance travelled by individual mitochondria, suppresses organelle dynamics, and blocks chemotaxis and metastasis, in vivo.