You do the science, we do the recording: WatchYourFish™ allows scientists to conduct naturalistic behavior experiments remotely in the revolutionary MagnaTank™ behavior monitoring platform by Martineau & Associates, Inc. The first Experiment-As-a-Service offering, WatchYourFish™ frees zebrafish researchers from the costs and burdens associated with the increasingly important larval behavior assays in zebrafish research.
In medical research, and drug discovery in particular, the zebrafish (Danio Rerio) has demonstrated its extraordinary potential to accelerate research timelines while reducing costs. Medical research using the model is increasingly relying on the impressive behavior repertoire exhibited by the transparent larvae, but this requires specialized, expensive equipment that comes with many constraints that limit experiments. The 3.5mm larvae must typically be individually segregated and the systems generate enormous volumes of data and inherently noisy measurements.
The MagnaTank™ behavior monitoring platform removes all these hurdles: groups of free-swimming larvae are recorded in custom Petri dish-sized containers. Illuminated horizontally (darkfield illumination), larvae are recorded using the novel Remanent Imaging paradigm: they literally draw their own trajectories on the black background of the images. This reduces processing needs and data footprint, making possible real time processing of life long recordings, a prowess out of reach of any other existing technology.
WatchYourFish™ makes this platform accessible and affordable to any lab: scientists send us their eggs and experimental requirements (food, light cycle, etc.), we hatch the fish and record them for 5 days, process the data, and make recordings and analysis data available to them via a web browser.
“WatchYourFish™ will accelerate the proliferation of computer vision innovation by shortcutting product deployment and acquisition” said Pierre Martineau, president and founder of Martineau & Associates, Inc. “Scientists will be able to access new inventions that push the state of the art immediately and at affordable costs, and interact with their recordings and experiment data using the all familiar web browser.”
Remote operation and access to the platform is made possible by its underlying software architecture and PiscisTrack™ suite of custom software. PiscisTrack™ performs all image capture, data storage and data processing tasks via a unified, consistent, cloud based architecture controlled via web browser.
Costs and delays from equipment acquisition, user training, and experiment turnaround time are removed by the WatchYourFish™ service. Initially targeting zebrafish larvae, the service allows scientists to conduct naturalistic behavior experiments not possible before and interact with their experiments and recordings in an unprecedented manner with no training prerequisite.
The research and development of the new technologies was supported by the United States National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health.
About Martineau & Associates, Inc.
Martineau & Associates, Inc. designs computer vision instruments of a new type to advance knowledge of the living world and the understanding of complex animal behavior. Over the past decade, we’ve focused on zebrafish (Danio rerio), the fastest growing animal model in neuroscience research.
For more information visit our website at www.martineau.com, come to our booth (Table 13) at the 17th International Zebrafish Society (IZFS) Conference June 22-26, 2022 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, or contact Pierre Martineau, pierre@martineau.com, 650-326-5030.