Workshop aim

The knowledge of cellular composition and spatial contexture in different tissue beds is
essential to understanding normal and disease states. Tissue multiplexing techniques represent a
powerful tool to probe the cellular organization with significant implications for basic research and drug discovery and development. The recent past has witnessed an explosive growth of multiplexing
techniques, which enable the simultaneous imaging of up to 100 biomarkers from a single tissue section. Common to all multiplexing techniques is the image analysis workflow which converts the high dimensional raw data into useful information (i.e., density, location and phenotypes of different cells).

The goal of this workshop is to create a forum to discuss technical challenges, best practices, tips, tricks and pitfalls related to multiplex image analysis. We are soliciting abstracts on topics related to multiplex image analysis including but not limited to:

• Cell/nuclear segmentation
• Cell phenotyping
• Clustering and dimensionality reduction
• Multiplex assay validation
• Reproducibility & batch to batch variability
• Data normalization strategies
• Statistical and spatial tools for multiplex data

QuPath demo session

A demo/training session is planned on the use of QuPath software for multiplex image analysis, which is a widely used open-source software.

Software development for multiplex image analysis

This year we are planning on hosting a special session and a roundtable discussion on software development for multiplex image analysis. The motivation behind this roundtable is to initiate a dialog between various stakeholders of multiplex image analysis software to discuss topics ranging from software development & maintenance costs, interoperability, long term product availability and support, funding models for software development, feasibility for private-public collaboration (e.g., foundational AI models), etc.. The stakeholders include but are not limited to image analysis software users (pharma/biotech companies, academic labs, and university core facilities) and software developers (commercial vendors, software as a service (SaaS) provider and academic/open-source software developers).

Software features demo session

The purpose of this special session is to provide a forum for software developers to showcase the technical features of their image analysis software by addressing a set of specific questions/technical
issues using the 17plex image of human tonsil. We recognize that no software will be able to address all the issues. The objective is to demonstrate how best the technical issues can be addressed using your software tool. The speaker will have 15 minutes for the presentation. Q&A will be in a roundtable format at the end of the session where all speakers will be panelists. We are flexible with the presentation format (either a software demo or a PPT slide deck with screenshots, or a combination). Please refrain from giving a marketing presentation as this will go down very badly with the audience. We welcome commercial vendors, academic and open-source developers to submit an abstract for this session (please indicate in the abstract that it is for the software features demo session).

Poster session

We will accept a limited number of abstracts (10-12) for a poster session.

Short talks

To increase visibility for early career scientists (PhD students, postdocs and junior scientists), we will select a limited number of regular contributed abstracts for a short talk (15 min incl. Q&A) where the speaker can present the main highlights of their work.

Who should attend

New, intermediate & advanced end users of multiplex image analysis. The emphasis of the workshop is not limited to technical, algorithm development but is also focused on the practical aspects of selecting and evaluating the appropriate tools for various tasks. The training and demo sessions will be beneficial for novice and intermediate users of multiplex image analysis with limited technical expertise. The talks will also cater to advanced users and experts who will have ample opportunities to present and discuss technical/algorithmic details.