Cloud-based microscopy

UZH is a University laboratory making significant use of microscopic data. In this experiment UZH provided a test case in the area of fluorescent microscopy. MicroscopeIT is a Polish technology-based SME company, founded in 2012, which has introduced an internet service called VIRTUM. The challenge here was to adapt the VIRTUM service to an HPC-Cloud-based infrastructure and to test the new service on four numerically intensive test cases. The test cases were: analysis of images from remotely controlled fluorescence microscopy; processing data from super-resolution microscopy; management and visualization of spectroscopic data; and whole slide imaging and analysis in digital pathology and high-throughput screening. 

The VIRTUM service has been adapted to work on an external Cloud-based HPC infrastructure. Through the use of HPC, the time taken to process test cases has been reduced from one day to a few hours, a typical reduction of 5 times. A cross-platform, simple user-interface has also been developed. This supports the visualisation of data and its management from almost any device. Furthermore, the VIRTUM service provides flexible licensing models allowing end-users to optimize their costs.