Section: Scientific Foundations
Image restoration for high-resolution microscopy
In order to produce images compatible with the dynamic processes in living cells as seen in video-microscopy, we study the potential of non-local neighborhood filters and image denoising algorithms (e.g. nD-Safir software) [6] , [2] , [7] , [4] . The major advantage of these approaches is to acquire images at very low SNR while recovering denoised 2D+T(ime) and 3D+T(ime) images [1] . Such post-acquisition processing can improve the rate of image acquisition by a factor of 100 to 1000 times [5] , reducing the sensitivity threshold and allowing imaging for long time regime without cytotoxic effect and photodamages. This approach has been successfully applied to WF, SDC [1] , TIRF [19] , fast live imaging and 3D-PALM using the OMX system in collaboration with J. Sedat and M. Gustafsson at UCSF [5] . The nD-Safir software (see Section 5.1 ) has been licensed to a large set of laboratories over the world (see Figure 2 ). New information restoration and image denoising methods are currently investigated to make SIM imaging compatible with the imaging of molecular dynamics in live cells. Unlike other optical sub-diffraction limited techniques (e.g. STED [32] , PALM [20] ) SIM has the strong advantage of versatility when considering the photo-physical properties of the fluorescent probes [30] . Such developments are also required to be compatible with “high-throughput microscopy” since several hundreds of cells are observed at the same time and the exposure times are typically reduced.