New generation electrophysiology software
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Experiments in electrophysiology often include measuring the electrical activity of cells. This typically requires a software interface between recording hardware and the end user, with the software controlling the recording equipment but also processing and displaying the recorded data.
Current electrophysiological software however is ill-suited to many researcher’s diverse requirements, and so groups often resort to developing their own.
One such group is Dr James Fraser and his team in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience. “For each group to create their own software is an inefficient use of time,” explains James. “If we can create a more powerful, flexible package, researchers will be able to tailor it to their needs without having to create new software for every new experiment.”
With pump-prime funding from the BBSRC Impact Acceleration Account, James and his team have been turning their own home-grown software into something user-friendly and with greater functionality than commercially available software. Key new features include on-the-go data analysis and automatic generation of high quality graphs. “If you can see what is happening as it happens, experiments can be fixed more quickly if something goes wrong,” says James.
The new software will not only improve the efficiency of people’s work, but it will also be a helpful teaching tool. To create and market the final commercial product, James and his team will be collaborating with Cairn Research, a scientific instruments manufacturer based in the UK.
“What we’re hoping is that at the end of this, we’ll have a piece of software that, with our commercial partners Cairn, we can turn into a commercial piece of software that will allow much easier, much quicker, much better electrophysiology experiments in the future.”