There are a number of different ways to work with us depending on the scale of the help/collaboration.

Don't see a path that matches your needs? We're happy to get creative - please email us to discuss!

Forum

The Scientific Community Image Forum is a public forum where users can ask questions about image analysis and image analysis software. We actively respond to questions under the COBA tag (for general image analysis questions) and the CellProfiler tag (for questions about using CellProfiler), as do members of the image analysis community at large. This is a great starting point for any image analysis questions.

Office Hours

If you still have questions after posting in the Image.sc forum, you are welcome to sign up for an office hour with a member of our team. Office hours are designed to help you develop a specific image analysis solution using open-source software. Our team are all experts in CellProfiler though we are also able to assist with a variety of other softwares. Office hours are 30 minutes each and signups are limited to 2 sessions per person per year.  See the schedule and sign up for a slot at https://broad.io/imagingofficehours.

BIG-SCOPE

Thanks to Broad internal funding (which we have therefore dubbed the Broad Internal Grant Supporting Collaboration On image Processing and Evaluation), we are able to offer limited free image analysis services to members of the Broad community. We can provide up to 10 hours of total service per group and can consult at all stages of a quantitative image analysis project, including experimental design, image analysis, and data analysis. Please read our For Collaborators page, particularly “What can be accomplished in 10 hours of image analysis”. To get started, please fill out this form and email Erin Weisbart to get underway. 

Fee for Service (for projects of all scales)

We are happy to do image analysis (or related services such as code creation or image-data-science) on a fee for service basis. We have done so at scales from tens of images to millions of images, for collaborations lasting days to years, with an average of 20-30 academic and industry partners annually. There are two paths for paying for our collaboration as a fee-for-service (SSF and ASTP):

SSF (Specialized Service Facilities) is an hourly collaboration with the Cimini Lab.  It requires only a purchase order in advance but can include no other formal paperwork. It is the fastest and easiest way to get started and is often preferred by academic collaborators. If you require more paperwork, like a non-disclosure agreement or other paperwork often requested by industry collaborators, the SSF option won't work. There is a set rate of $213/hr for academic labs, and $277/hr for industry collaborators, with a 5 hour minimum quote; these prices include all overhead and indirects (total costs). Hours are invoiced monthly as used; we only bill time actually spent, and quotes with surplus hours can be either closed after work is completed or rolled to a new project.

ASTP is the Annual Support and Training Plan with the Cimini Lab. It is a minimum of 50 hours pre-billed as $10,000 for academic labs or $13,000 for industry labs; these prices include all overhead and indirects (total costs). Unlike the SSF model, hours are "use them or lose them" for one calendar year from date of signing. We can provide you with Broad's standard legal agreements for this service, which can be somewhat (though not infinitely) modified in collaboration with your needs.

Additionally, for the Cell Painting assay and Optical Pooled Screening assays, we have a fixed cost model based on the number of batches and plates that can be paid by either SSF or ASTP. 

We are generally happy to provide grant/fellowship letters of support and/or quotes for smaller projects (typically <100 hours total over the grant lifetime) if you are writing a proposal which includes future use of either mechanism. We do require sufficient notice (at least 2 weeks from deadline) and direction from you (e.g. a draft and/or experiment plan, if you want text tailored beyond our standard list of offerings); please email Beth to discuss. For support for grants for large projects, see Collaborative Grants below.

Collaborative Research Grants (for large projects typically >100 hours; otherwise see Fee for Service above)

As both a service and research facility, we have been excited to partner with many researchers on large joint research projects of mutual interest; this is especially appropriate for large projects where no good turnkey analysis solution exists and custom methods must be developed. For such projects we typically require at least co-PI status and a dedicated subcontract. Please email Beth to discuss your idea and brainstorm funding options; if you have already identified a funding opportunity, please reach out at least 45-60 days before the deadline to ensure we can agree on mutual fit, scope, and budget with enough time for all paperwork steps to occur and for writing to take place.