Working Group 1
Quality Assessment and Reproducibility for Instruments & Images in Light Microscopy
The Consortium for Quality Assessment and Reproducibility for Instruments and Images in Light Microscopy (QUAREP-LiMi), formed by the global community of practitioners, researchers, developers, service providers, funders, publishers, policy makers and industry related to the use of light microscopy, is committed to democratizing access to quantitative and reproducible light microscopy and the data generated by it.
Our mission is to provide a comprehensive set of community-agreed guidelines, protocols, automation procedures and other resources aimed at improving quality control, quality assurance, and instrument/method calibration. The stakeholders advocate for the use of the highest level of reproducibility for data generated by light microscopy methods in scientific research and biotechnology applications. In support of achieving its mission, QUAREP-LiMi:
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sanctions Working Groups to form teams that focus on specific technical or outreach topics;
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maintains, disseminates, and teaches best practices, protocols, and software tools; and
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collaborates with providers of reference materials or instrumentation or other tools that enable the easy implementation of best practices at the community level.
We came together in our first online Web meeting on the 28th of April, 2020, with about 50 attendees. By now (24st of April 2024), the network has grown to 620 people from 41 countries worldwide. We have members from academia (research labs, core facilities), national microscopy communities, companies involved in the microscopy business, organizations or institutions related to standardization on a national or international level, and scientific publishers and observers from funding agencies (see the graph below and on the member page for an overview).
Ten working groups (WGs) were established in the 2nd General Meeting on the 9th of July 2020 to bring our common aims quickly forward. Our web page gives an overview of QUAREP-LiMi’s work. In the 3rd General Meeting, WG 11 “Microscopy Publication Standards” and later WGs 12 “Image Visualization and Analysis” and 13 “Phototoxicity” were established. WG 14 “Environment” and 15 “FLIM” are in the process of being established, and WG 8 is restructured to work on “Education, Training and Outreach”.
QUAREP-LiMi operates a NextCloud and an OMERO server, serving as a centralized repository and exchange point for our collective work. These platforms facilitate collaboration and data sharing among our members.
QUAREP-LiMi is absolutely open to new members, and we are looking forward to your contribution. If you are interested in joining our initiative, please fill out our membership form. Use our form for changing your working group (WG) or joining a new WG. For any further questions, please contact us.
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Working Group 2
24th meeting, 14th of November 2022
Meeting date
14/11/2022 @ 5:00 PM (CET/CEST)
Meeting summary
Thanks a lot to all of you who participated in the lively discussion about our “Detection system behaviour measurements” collection.
We discussed several aspects of the table structure for our measurements and analysis data wich needs to be updated. One major discussion was again about the unique identifier. A solution needs to be found in general for Quarep. Until then we use an intermediate solution with unique identifiers in our excel sheet. Also need to ask the HTS community for their expertise.
Furthermore, Kees reported from his last test runs with the APE quantiflash. His presentation can also be found here on our cloud folder. The other test places will report about their experiences and results in our meeting in February.
23rd meeting, 10th of October 2022
Meeting date
10/10/2022 @ 5:00 PM (CET/CEST)
Meeting summary
We did start our meeting welcoming a new member and refresh a few organisational matters.
This was followed by the report from the WG9 & cochair meeting on Oct 6th:
– More active members are needed for WG9.
– Furthermore, an internal review process was discussed. Please revise and comment on the proposal for the “Internal Review Pipeline”.
The joined group WG2and WG7 is working to consolidate the camera part of the model. The glossary still needs to be finished.
A new organisation of model revision was discussed as well as potential next topics: light sources (maybe two parts: lasers, wide-field illumination), filters, objectives.
We then focused the discussion on AirTable organisation and reporting of measurement and parameters from acquisition and analysis.
As a result of the discussion we agreed to start from excel file in order to define the most important parameter before to transfer all of them in AirTable.
Care should be taken in naming and saving the data in the correct way so that the analysis group can focus on the output parameters and their interpretation.
Acquisition parameters and issue still need to be fixed and all comments should be added to the protocol draft in protocols.io once it is finalised there.
(A QUAREP-LiMi-wide training on ptrotocols.io was planned for beginning of November.)
Still work to do in: testing new samples (marker pen), acquire new images from chroma slide, collect and compare analysis measurements, finalise the transfer of our protocols after the training.
22th meeting, 12th of September 2022
Meeting date
12/09/2022 @ 5:00 PM (CET/CEST)
Meeting summary
The camera metadata (WG2 + 7) group needs to work on a glossary, explaining the terminology used. It was decided that people from the camera subgroup will start working on this glossary. Furthermore, it was decided that we need to start thinking about the next microscope parts, for which the metadata structure and vocabulary can be standardized. Kees reported further on testing of the Quantiflash standardized light source. A continuous (DC) mode should be implemented in addition to the pulsed mode. The standardized light source will be discussed in detail during the November meeting. Personal learning sessions for Protocols.io will be offered to interested members of WG2.
Working Group 3
Working Group 4
40th meeting, 15th of October 2024
Meeting date
15/10/2024 @ 5:00 PM (CET/CEST)
Meeting summary
LacJ shared the key points discussed during the SC meeting on 2024/10/01 and presented the work on the data model to the WG members. The group focused on discussing the organization and content of the protocol, and deadlines were set to ensure its finalization. Our next WG meeting will be on November 19th.
Working Group 5
48th meeting, 14th of April 2025
Meeting date
14/04/2025 @ 3:30 PM (CET/CEST)
Meeting summary
The protocol V2 was discussed and it was voted to pass the next version of the protocol to the SC.
For the upcoming ELMI workshop, plans were initiated to host a one-hour session, considering point source and line patterns, and coordinating tasks among participants.
An update on the paper shared insights on confocal SBR and r² values, noting differences due to noise factors. Discussions included data analysis techniques and the challenges of data variance over time. The meeting concluded with a call for organizing data in OMERO and an update on a new ISO norm for metadata, inviting community participation. The next meeting is postponed by a week to accommodate a French national holiday.
Working Group 6
Working Group 7
29th meeting, 17th of June 2024
Meeting date
17/06/2024 @ 5:00 PM (CET/CEST)
Meeting summary
Julio presented an extension to OMERO for tracking metrology data. During the discussion next steps were discussed which included attending WGs 3, 4, and 5 and presenting the work in order to align the metadata schema. There were also extended discussions about recent events, e.g., at OME2024 and ELMI2024.
Working Group 8
Working Group 9
Working Group 10
27th meeting, 11th of April 2023
Meeting date
11/04/2023 @ 4:00 PM (CET/CEST)
Meeting summary
For this meeting, we will need to take a decision about SBR parameter and all over parameter we decided not to consider.
+ 10 min per sub group to discuss briefly the progresses that have been made.
+ preparation of the Annual meeting
Working Group 11
33rd 10th of October 2024
Meeting date
10/10/2024 @ 11:00 AM (CET/CEST)
Meeting summary
Paula shares that bare-minimum checklist is moving forward. It took on new momentum at BINA meeting. SC endorsed content at Oct. SC meeting. Caterina and Judith are aligning with NBO-Q schema.
Some topics have been discussed.
Decission Tree for chosing reporting structure. Paula collected input from last meeting
MicCheck tree updates. is there a way to align MicCheck with quarep work?
Can users actually answer questions at the level of MicCheck?