Simon Cleary

Simon Cleary

@simoncleary.bsky.social

Research group leader and lecturer in pharmacology at King's College London: kcl.ac.uk/people/simon-cleary Studying lung inflammation, injury and repair with new imaging techniques to enable improvements in respiratory medicine.

409 followers477 following93 posts

Simon Cleary reposted

An old friend asked if I had any videos of cilia laying around for her class to see. I dug up this one from about 10 years ago and it could maybe win a prize for 'most similar to a wacky waving inflatable tube man'.

Simon Cleary reposted

Simon Cleary reposted

AI image generators are being used to make movies that, at 1st glance, look like real microscopy but on closer inspection are misleading slop. Ok to use these images for public engagement, competitions, decoration, research? Join live discussion later today: events.bitesizebio.com/nikon-small-...

events.bitesizebio.comNikon Small World and AI: Where Should Scientific Imaging Draw the Line?On October 9th, Nikon announced that the original first-place video in its 2026 Small World in Motion competition did not meet its rules on generative AI and revised the rankings following a review wi...
Massimo (mirror)@rainmaker1973-m.bsky.social

When you feel sad, remember that tiny proteins called kinesins are working inside you 24/7 just to keep you alive. Be kind to yourself, your body is doing everything it can to keep you alive. [🎞️ thequantara] Original post

Simon Cleary reposted

Register for this webinar to join @cilialab.bsky.social @florianjug.bsky.social and me for what I hope will be a productive discussion on AI in microscopy:

Peter O'Toole@yorkbioimaging.bsky.social

This Wednesday-super important discussion. Nikon Small World and AI: Where Should Scientific... events.bitesizebio.com/nikon-small-... @globalbioimaging.bsky.social @globias.bsky.social @eurobioimaging.bsky.social @royalmicrosoc.bsky.social @ctlslifescience.bsky.social @bioimagingna.bsky.social

Simon Cleary reposted

1. CRISPR came from basic research on bacteria. 2. Optogenetics started with a discovery in algae. 3. The GFP protein comes from jellyfish. The biggest breakthroughs all trace to scientists following their curiosity, and this is one huge reason why we must keep funding basic research!

Nikon have made the right choice and an important discussion has been started on acceptable use of AI in microscopy. Look at this weird little guy (now 5th place, a sea slug captured by Igor Adameyko)!!

Join >300 scientists, clinicians, patients and charity workers by signing this letter demanding a transparent & positive resolution after an AI-generated movie claiming to represent an airway of a child with PCD was awarded 1st place in Nikon's video-microscopy contest:

Mill_lab@cilialab.bsky.social

Microscopy images are scientific evidence, and that image processing must be transparent and faithful to the underlying biology. Reinforce those standards, especially now-insist Nikon uphold them. #NikonSWiM2026 Read the letter: tinyurl.com/OpenLetterSW... Add your name: forms.gle/TyGRELnCxq5z...

It is wrong that a largely AI-generated movie has been awarded 1st prize in the Nikon Small World in Motion competition. If you agree and want microscopy competitions and research to stay rooted in reality, please co-sign this letter:

Mill_lab@cilialab.bsky.social

Microscopy images are scientific evidence, and that image processing must be transparent and faithful to the underlying biology. Reinforce those standards, especially now-insist Nikon uphold them. #NikonSWiM2026 Read the letter: tinyurl.com/OpenLetterSW... Add your name: forms.gle/TyGRELnCxq5z...

Great opportunity for someone looking for a PhD. If you know someone who might be interested in working on new approaches to treat inflammatory lung conditions, do encourage them to email me with a CV and statement on why they are interested in PhD studies.

British Pharmacological Society@britpharmsoc.bsky.social

💷 Our PhD Funding is now open for awards in 2027! The programme awards more than £100K over 3 years to students to carry out PhD research in pharmacology and/or therapeutic innovation. Apply by 31 Oct 2026: https://www.bps.ac.uk/news/article/relaunching-our-phd-funding-programme-for-2027/

For this programme it is best if applicants have British/Irish citizenship or settled status, strong interest in pharmacology and some experience in lung/immunology/mouse model research.

Simon Cleary reposted

Simon Cleary reposted

Having seen the news: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... thought I'd share a cilia movie captured at UCL GOS ICH with Eriomina Shahaj & Vanesa Papastavrou using simple DIC on a Nikon Ti2 with DIC at 60x1.4. 500 fps here slowed down 20 times. Processed with Nikon's denoiseAI and an unsharp mask in Fiji.

Rule: no AI-generated images. The winner confessed to AI-generating all details in lower half of image! SynthID watermark present, so an inappropriate Google/chatGPT AI generation tool was used. Movie also biologically implausible - we are told it is one cell but it is over 50 microns wide!

Simon Cleary reposted

Hey! Submit your papers, and spread the word, this will be great! Thanks for inviting us @jcellsci.bsky.social and great to work with @pihanson.bsky.social on this issue!

Journal of Cell Science@jcellsci.bsky.social

Our second special issue for 2027 will focus on the topic of membrane dynamics and repair. We invite you to submit your latest research to this issue, which will be coordinated by our Guest Editors @jezcarlton.bsky.social and @pihanson.bsky.social. journals.biologists.com/jcs/pages/me...

There is a clear distinction between processing images to remove noise + spillover to better see real things (fine) and generating fake structures and time points (not fair!)

Mill_lab@cilialab.bsky.social

My bigger concern @christlet.bsky.social is @healthcare.nikon.com Small World In Motion website changing strapline to ‘AI-assisted post-processing’ as opposed to AI-generated- puts on same scale as denoising, segmentation, deconvolution, unmixing which we do legitimately versus what is deceptive

Update on the Nikon Small World in Motion competition - Nikon now calling the AI-generated winning movie a 'rendition' and investigating:

Christophe 🔬 Leterrier@christlet.bsky.social

Here's a balanced account of where the microscopy community stands on AI use by this year's Small World in Motion winner. My main issue is that no one seems to have seen the original data despite requests (no mention of it being reviewed by the organizers) www.the-scientist.com/allegations-...

Simon Cleary reposted

#FluorescenceFriday: Given the recently grown interest in ciliary beating, here is a movie of beating cilia in a human airway model that I captured last week with lattice light-sheet microscopy. No AI „processing“, this is the raw data! Frame rate is ca. 170fps, displayed here at 25fps.

Simon Cleary reposted

Update on the "AI-based triage" which is getting lots of (negative) attention

Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social

AI ‘could filter out weaker grant proposals’, study suggests. Preprint analysing automated scoring of applications for UKRI funding comes amid reports of AI-based rejections. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-i...

I would prefer a lottery system to a potentially biased AI-triage. Would also have lower costs for the funder.

John Stott@jpsastro.bsky.social

Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky

Simon Cleary reposted

Replying to @joachimgoedhart.bsky.social

Even if it were ok to add AI-generated details in the lower half of the movie, what we are now told is a section of one ciliated cell is way too wide to be based on real images of one cell.

Simon Cleary reposted

Out now @nature.com! We report a new means of cell communication: receptor-free signal transduction. TLRs engage MyD88 for minutes, yet myddosomes signal for hours. TRAM releases myddosomes from TLRs, letting them mature and sustain signaling in the cytosol. rdcu.be/jGdKxErXyAsa Details below:

Nikon seem to have admitted awarding an AI-generated video 1st place in the Small World in Motion contest, which has a rule forbidding AI-generated entries:

Christophe 🔬 Leterrier@christlet.bsky.social

This is the updated part. Looks like the movie is an AI-generated fluorescence image from a non-labeled acquisition technique. No indication that the Small World jury and organizers have requested and verified the raw data (as mentioned as a possibility in the competition rules)

These tools are easy to use but produce hallucination artifacts when applied to images different from those in the training dataset. In the case of the winning sequence, these are totally fake, mis-scaled details resembling features of confocal images of stained membranes, nuclei, and mitochondria

Some upset regarding the Nikon Small World in Motion winner this year so wanted to highlight that the beautiful image that won the Small World competition in 2022 was the initial inspiration for our project:

Simon Cleary@simoncleary.bsky.social

First preprint from the lab! We found that fluorescence imaging of fibrillar collagen with fast green FCF is useful for imaging pulmonary fibrosis: doi.org/10.64898/202...

Info on the gecko hand image from Grigorii Timin and Michel Milinkovitch here: doi.org/10.1016/j.is... There is value in wonder, in showing data to new audiences and in being motivated to produce exceptional work. I hope Nikon continue to support competitions, but with some extra methods checks!

Simon Cleary reposted