We discuss in this article the creation and organization of a national core facility for bioimage analysis, based on a distributed team. F-BIAS federates bioimage analysts across France and relies on them to deliver services to the researchers of this territory. The main challenge in implementing this structure is to provide significant scientific value to its members, thereby encouraging their active participation and persuading their respective host teams to support their involvement. F-BIAS accomplished this by creating a professional network that mitigates the negative effects of isolation experienced by its members, who are often the sole bioimage analyst within their local teams, and fosters the development of their technical skills. In a second phase we capitalized on F-BIAS to create a virtual, remotely-operating core facility for bioimage analysis, offering consultations and collaborative project services to the scientific community of France. The services are organized so that they also contribute to the technical proficiency of the analysts. To promote the creation of similar structures, we present and discuss here the organization of this nationally distributed bioimage analysis service core, highlighting successes and challenges.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2409.15009,
title = {F-BIAS: Towards a distributed national core facility for Bioimage Analysis},
author = {Mélodie Ambroset and Marie Anselmet and Clément Benedetti and Arthur Meslin and Aurélien Maillot and Christian Rouvière and Guillaume Maucort and Marine Breuilly and Marvin Albert and Gaëlle Letort and Antonio Trullo and Volker Bäcker and Jérôme Mutterer and Fabrice Cordelières and Thierry Pécot and Minh-Son Phan and Stéphane Rigaud and Magali Feyeux and Perrine Paul-Gilloteaux and Anne-Sophie Macé and Jean-Yves Tinevez},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.15009},
year = {2025}
}