Next week, our image processing team is going to the GRETSI’22 Symposium in Nancy (France). Renaud Morin and Clément Cazorla are eager to meet experts in signal and image processing from different fields.
Our phD student, Clément Cazorla, will present his work, Svetlana, a Supervised Segmentation Classifier for Napari. Svetlana is an an open-source Napari plugin dedicated to the manual or automatic classification of segmentation results.

Our CEO, Jean-Michel Lagarde and business developer Ludivine Guillaume, will attend the Cosmetotest symposium on in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo testing for the beauty industry in Lyon (France).
This symposium, hosted by Cosmet'In lYon and Skinobs in collaboration with the SFI2C and the DIIP, aims to provide cosmeticians from all over the world with the knowledge and skills to:

• Interact with participants and make a technological and scientific point through academic and applied lectures.
• Meet with testing partners, exhibitors, CROs, and instrumentation providers.
• Participate in device demonstrations given by exhibitors.

Do not hesitate to contact us to schedule a meeting!

We published a new scientific paper in collaboration with Stephane Lezmi's team (IPSEN Innovation).
In this study, the distribution of neuro-muscular junctions (NMJ) in rat muscles appears to be dependent on the type of pennation. The molecular phenotyping of NMJ will help to better integrate the rat model into study of Botulinum Neurotoxins therapies. Detailed observation of myofibers organization may help clinicians better evaluate the location of NMJ in humans.
Imactiv-3D's team imaged the whole rat muscles in 3D with light-sheet microscopy and designed a custom-built image processing algorithm to detect and count every neuro-muscular junctions. The total number of NMJ found in muscle varies from 4,179 for the Soleus up to 16,318 in the Flexor digitorum brevis muscle.
You can read the full article here

Imactiv-3D will be in Paris for the first Workshop dedicated to the structuring of the Organ on Chips community. Organized by the Biovalley France pole, our CEO Jean-Michel Lagarde and business developer Ludivine Guillaume will be there to meet the actors of the sector.
To learn more about this event, click here, or contact us to learn more about what we can do for organ on chips.

Our Ph.D. student in biomedical image processing, Clément Cazorla, participated tp the BioImage Informatics conference organized by the Institut Pasteur on December 1, 2021.
On this occasion, he presented a poster on the graphic interface he developed in Python to segment biomedical images with a light-weight convulational neural network, using very few annotations.
To read his poster entitled "An interactive deep learning segmentation software with sparse annotations", click here.

IMACTIV-3D is pleased to participate to this new edition of the International Conference on Health Innovative Solutions organized by the Xidian University and LSLEAD (Life sciences leadership School).
We will be speaking on Wednesday, November 10 during the session dedicated to Innovative Biotherapies.
Free registration and more information here
Innovative biotherapies are on the rise and use biomedicines whose active ingredients are produced from living organisms and resulting from fundamental research in biotechnology. This includes antibodies, vaccines, viral vectors, stem cells and other therapeutic molecules produced from living microorganisms. Innovative biotherapies are closely linked to diagnostic and prognostic biomarker tools, as well as for therapeutic monitoring. The integration of these tools into the therapeutic arsenal allows for more efficient patient care and contributes to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of diseases. However, the basic aspects must not be forgotten and allow us to remain at the forefront of innovation in biotherapies. This webinar will therefore focus on all these facets of biotherapies, as well as future innovative projects, and will be illustrated with numerous examples of applications.

La collaboration entre Amylgen et Imactiv-3D offre un nouveau service permettant d’accéder à des données nouvelles et complémentaires dans les modèles précliniques exploités par Amylgen. Les études réalisées chez Amylgen produisent des données de comportement basées sur l’observation des animaux ainsi que des données de biochimie et d’histologie obtenues ex vivo sur les mêmes animaux.
Imactiv-3D prend la suite avec son expertise en imagerie à feuille de lumière (microscopie à fluorescence en 3D) et en traitement d’images.
Cette synergie permet, par exemple, de réaliser une analyse fine des réseaux microvasculaires dans le cerveau des souris dans les modèles de maladies neurodégénératives comme la maladie d’Alzheimer ou chez les souris âgées.
Dans le contexte d’études sur le vieillissement, il est possible de mettre en évidence les modifications qui interviennent dans la micro vascularisation de divers organes sous-tendant un dysfonctionnement de leurs fonctions. D’autres applications possibles sont envisagées.
Pour retrouver ce webinar commun, cliquez ici.
Pour plus d'informations sur les études sur la vascularisation : étude de cas ici.

On June 8, Our CEO Jean-Michel Lagarde will present our work with Ipsen Innovation on neuromuscular junctions at the Biomarker & Therapy Days.
He will talk about the quantification of junctions on whole muscle using 3D imaging and image processing, work that we have started to discuss in this technical sheet.
On the program: biomarkers of aging and degeneration in the cardiac and pulmonary systems, in sense organs and the musculoskeletal system.
This event is organized by the regional agency AD'OCC, Eurobiomed and the University of Montpellier.
You can find the full program here.

Our CEO Jean-Michel Lagarde will be (digitally) here to meet with several oncology experts at the Meet2Win Oncolofy Partnering Convention the 6th and 7th May 2021.
This partnering event organized by MATWIN, an open-innovation platform dedicated to oncology, combines conferences, projects pitches and B2B meetings.
IMACTIV-3D always looks forward to this event for the exciting discussions on innovation in oncology. If you are curious to know what we are able to do in this area, you can visit this page of our website.

We are thrilled to see our work in the European project IMLINFO finally published in the journal Cancers. IMLINFO’s goal is to determine the efficacy of new immunotherapy treatments against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma tumours associated with a 3D culture platform. It involves 8 organizations located in Spain and France.
Our research for this project focused on the follicular lymphoma, which accounts for 20-30 percent of all non-Hodgkin lymphoma cases and is still considered as incurable. We conceived a realistic 3D model of t(14;18)-positive B-NHL cell culture, that allows a more robust drug testing by 2D and 3D imaging monitoring techniques.
Imactiv-3D was involved in the 3D characterization of these models using light sheet fluorescence microscopy. This technology has been chosen for its numerous advantages:

• It allows to penetrate a 3D sample in depth, quickly and in full,
• It exposes a sample to up to 5000 times less energy than confocal fluorescence microscopy, minimizing photo-bleaching and photo-induced cell damage,
• It results in high resolution and multichannel fluorescence images.

Imactiv-3D also specifically developed and implemented an image processing pipeline to automatically segment the samples in 3D from light sheet microscopy acquisitions. The algorithm’s output allowed to estimate various 3D morphological parameters as volume, eccentricity, sphericity, and roundness.
The article entitled “3D model characterization by 2D and 3D imaging in t(14;18)-Positive B-NHL: Perspectives for in vitro drug screens in follicular lymphoma” is available here.

Imactiv-3D a participé à la 14^ème Journée Thématique sur l’Imagerie Cutanée du 11 mars 2021 organisée par Cosmet’In Lyon et la SF2IC (Société Francophone d’Ingénierie et d’Imagerie Cutanée).
Jean-Michel Lagarde y a présenté une e-conférence sur l'utilisation de différentes modalités d'imagerie pour mesurer la taille des adipocytes sur plusieurs modèles biologiques en s'appuyant sur les travaux effectués avec notre partenaire D.I.V.A. Expertise.
Vous pouvez retrouver le programme de cette journée ici.
Pour en savoir plus sur notre travail pour la dermo-cosmétique, nos fiches d'application sont disponibles ici.

Imactiv-3D was involved in this newly published article investigating the effect of mitotic arrest in the clustering of tumor cells. Our image processing expert, Renaud Morin developed a segmentation algorithm to quantify compaction and other morphology parameters over time. The cluster area was hence monitored and measured at each time point by automated image segmentation with a custom-designed MATLAB routine. This work has been published in Cell Division Journal, in collaboration with the ITAV CNRS labs in Toulouse (France). To read the full article: click here

The I4ID (Immunotherapies & Innovations for Infectious Diseases) Congress 2020 will address the current COVID-19 pandemics as well as other infectious diseases. The Scientific Committee has put together a programme focusing on detection, diagnosis, clinical trials, immunotherapies and innovative therapeutic approaches to prevent and tackle infectious diseases.
Franck Gallardo, NeoVirTech's CEO and Jean-Michel Lagarde, Imactiv-3D's CEO, will give a talk during the breakthrough innovation session dedicated to “New approaches to fight infectious diseases" on December 9th, 2020.
The oral presentation entitled “Combination between ANCHORTM tagged viruses and state of the art image acquisition and analysis platforms to investigate virus infection, replication and propagation in living 2D or 3D cell models” will unveil the results obtained by combining ANCHORTM labeling technology with powerful image processing solutions on 2D and 3D models.
Imactiv-3D and NeoVirTech teams will be pleased to meet you during this event and discuss on how our joint service could foster the preclinical development of your vaccines or immunotherapies.

If you miss on December 2nd, the first joint webinar organized by NeoVirTech and Imactiv-3D about 2D and 3D image processing for virology. "From 2D to 3D quantification: How does image processing enable to decipher viral infection and propagation?"
You can watch the recorded version of the webinar here
Our speakers Franck Gallardo, CEO of NeoVirTech and virology specialist, Renaud Morin, image processing expert at Imactiv-3D, and Jean-Michel Lagarde, CEO of Imactiv-3D will answer those questions:

• How to tag the viral genome in real time?
• How to image viral replication?
• How to extract quantitative data?
• How to transpose 2D techniques to live 2D and 3D?

The presentation is illustrated with case studies.
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions regarding the services we can offer as part of our strategic alliance with NeoVirTech in virology, and don't hesitate to follow us on our LinkedIn page to stay tuned about future events and webianrs!

Our CEO, Jean-Michel Lagarde was one of the speaker for the International Conference on Innovation Solutions (ICIS) organized by International Bio Business Services.
If you miss this remote conference, and want to hear our presentation of "3D imaging quantification of 3D biological models" you can find the recording here.

After more than 4 years spent in the Centre Pierre Potier hosted by the ITAV CNRS, Imactiv-3D officially joins the business incubator in the same building.
The 5,000m² business incubator is dedicated to the establishment of start-up oriented towards biotechnologies and is located in the campus “Santé du futur” next to the Oncopole in Toulouse (France).

On Tuesday, december 17, 2019, Aurélie Gomes successfully defended her thesis entitled "Evaluation of proliferation in tumor spheroids".
Her work, under a CIFRE agreement, is the result of 3 years of intense collaboration between the "Innovation for the study of 3D proliferation - IP3D" team at ITAV - Institut des Technologies Avancées en sciences du Vivant and IMACTIV-3D.
She was particularly interested in the evaluation of the proliferation in the 3D model of tumor spheroids and its regulation, in particular by oxygen. She has implemented experimental approaches to in toto antibody labelling, light sheet imaging and image analysis.
Her work has led to the development of methods and tools of interest in the study of cancer biology and response in anti-tumor pharmacology. Their application shows the importance of physioxia for the study of proliferation and the evaluation of drug response.
We are very happy that Aurélie Gomes continues the adventure with us. She will join IMACTIV-3D as a young doctor in January 2020 to share her expertise with our customers as R&D project manager in biology and imaging.

The TERMIS-EU workshop is an event organized by INSERM Nantes and the University of Nantes on the 26th and 27th of August 2019 in Nantes (France).
The theme for the workshop is “3D bioprinting in cancer research”. This workshop is intended for medical students, doctors and researchers on oncology. Different themes will be addressed, including “3D bioprinting of tumor models, 3D models for cancer, 3D bioprinting and cancer microenvironment” and “3D bioprinting for tissue reconstruction”. Over the two days, practical workshops on 3D modeling and bioprinting are organized.
Imactiv-3D’s CEO, Jean-Michel Lagarde will make a pitch on Exploration and 3D quantification by light sheet imaging and image processing.
If you are interested in joining us for this workshop, you can register here: www.workshop-termis.eu

Imactiv-3D will attend the 7^th edition of the Antibody Industrial Symposium (AIS), organized by MabDesign and LabEx MabImprove on June 24-25 2019 in Tours (France). This event is dedicated to Harnessing the Immune System with Therapeutic Antibodies.
During this event, there will be keynote lectures, industrial talks from big pharmaceutical companies and pitch talks of new creative projects, as well as networking and business partnering time.
The topics covered during the congress are:

• Immunomodulation via cell membrane antigens
• Harnessing the immune system with immunomodulatory therapeutic antibodies
• Pitch Session: Immunomodulation with mAbs: new strategies and technologies
• Immunomodulation via FC-FcgrammaR interaction
• Immunomodulation via soluble antigens

Jean-Michel Lagarde, our CEO, will represent Imactiv-3D, do not hesitate to get in touch to organize a face to face meeting!

The IMALC project comes to an end! This research project was aiming to treat follicular lymphomas with anti-CD20 antibodies, and to develop quantitative imaging tools to evaluate their efficacy by light sheet microscopy.
To conclude, this transversal and interdisciplinary research project made it possible to:
- Characterize biologically relevant study models
- Model lightsheet imaging clinical observations, and maybe in the longer run, to explain why monoclonal antibodies treatments are less effective in patients with high-tumor burden follicular lymphomas or with an increased immune checkpoint expression.
This project is therefore part of a global research effort to better understand lymphomatous pathology and the mechanisms involved in therapeutic treatments in order to identify targets and anticipate resistance mechanisms. This represents a major challenge for a pathology that is currently considered incurable.
Imactiv-3D team has developed a quantitative analysis of the distribution and diffusion of MAb (Monoclonal antibody) on these 3D models of follicular lymphomas (MALC) based on
1) light sheet microscopy imaging of MALC after treatment with therapeutic ACMs and
2) the development of a custom methodology for efficient and automated image processing and analysis to quantitatively characterize the spatiotemporal biodistribution of MAbs within MALC.
This project was based on the skills and expertise found in team N°9 of the CRCT (Toulouse Cancer Research Centre), on the imaging platform of the ITAV (Institut des Technologies Avancées du Vivant) and in the company IMACTIV3D.

Imactiv-3D is pleased to announce the publication of a new scientific article entitled “In vivo labelling of adenovirus DNA identifies chromatin anchoring and biphasic genome replication” in the Journal of Virology (DOI: 10.1128/JVI.00795-18) available here.
This study has been conducted in collaboration with the CNRS UMR5234 lab in Bordeaux (France) and with NeoVirTech. It shows that the real-time genome imaging system developed revealed hitherto uncharacterized features of adenoviral genomes in vivo. This system is capable of identifying new spatiotemporal aspects of the adenovirus life cycle and is potentially transferable to other viral systems with a double-stranded DNA phase.
Imactiv-3D team was involved in the characterization of viral replication centers in human cells and the image processing (denoising and deconvolution).

The « Canceropole Grand Sud-Ouest » is organizing the 2nd edition of the « Biofabrication & Cancer » workshop on 27 and 28 June 2018 in Bordeaux. This edition will be an opportunity to address a wide scientific audience via 6 sessions on a variety of topics and a strong involvement of industrialists in the bio-impression, modelling and cell culture field (pitchs and demonstrations).
Imactiv-3D is a sponsor of this event that will focus on 3D models for clinical practice the first day, and on bio-inks and technologies and 3D models for cancer the second day. Our CEO, Jean-Michel Lagarde will present a pitch explaining the solutions that Imactiv-3D can offer.

IMLINFO is a cross-border network of personalized immunotherapies against non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) involving 8 organizations located in Spain and France. Its main objective is to determine the efficacy of new immunotherapy treatments by creating a repository of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) tumours associated with a three-dimensional (3D) culture platform.
POCTEFA 2014-2020 is the acronym for the Interreg V-A Spain-France-Andorra Programme. It is a European cross-border cooperation programme created to promote the sustainable development of the border territories of the three countries.
This programme is financed by the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund).

Our team will be present at the InExO Symposium in Montpellier on 7 July 2017. This event gathers scientists interested in alternative models in vitro, ex ovo and organisms for pathology and ageing research fields.
The development of these new models is a real challenge to respond to societal concerns through an ethical approach aimed at reducing, optimising and replacing (3Rs: reduce, refine, replace) the use of animals for scientific purposes.
Our CEO, Jean-Michel Lagarde and our Ph.D. student Aurélie Gomes are going to present a poster on a new image analysis-based approach to evaluate cytoxicity on 3D models.
Our procedure using quantitative image analysis allows the evaluation and quantification of anticancer drugs cytotoxic activity on 3D multicellular models, and can be applied to multi-parametric analysis to address customers’ specific needs.

Imactiv-3D is very proud to announce its first scientific publication in the Oncology Letters!
This scientific article, entitled "Evaluation by quantitative image analysis of anticancer drug activity on multicellular spheroids grown in 3D matrix" is available here (DOI: 10.3892/ol.2016.5221).
Our team developed a new procedure to visualize, analyze and quantify the pharmacological activity of drugs on 3D multicellular spheres grown in a physiological matrix.
The aim of this study was to propose a robust and efficient imaging and analysis pipeline to assess with quantitative parameters the efficacy of a particular cytotoxic drug. HCT116 colorectal adenocarcinoma tumor cell multispheres were observed with structured illumination 3D microscopy and the images obtained were processed with custom analysis tools.
We were thus capable of automatically detecting spheres in a large volume of matrix in 96-well plates. This procedure was used to evaluate drug efficacy in HCT116 spheroids treated with different concentrations of topotecan, a DNA topoisomerase inhibitor. This work demonstrates that quantitative image analysis is an effective mean to evaluate and quantify the cytostatic and cytotoxic activities of anticancer drugs on 3D multicellular models grown in a physiological matrix.