Till Bretschneider
Title
Professor
Contact
Department of Computer Science
Room MB5.30, Mathematical Sciences Building
Academic Loop Road
University of Warwick, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom
E-mail: Till.Bretschneider@warwick.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 24 761 50252
Research Interests
My research is concerned with image-based modelling of cellular dynamics, employing a wide range of machine learning techniques. Current focus is on extending these methods to 3D time series data from fast lattice light sheet microscopy, with neural networks playing an increasing role in feature extraction, and generative modelling to map the complex spatio-temporal dynamics of cellular processes.
Current topics:
- Modelling macropinocytosis (large scale fluid uptake by cells), with Dr Judith Lutton, Prof Jason King (Sheffield), Dr Rob Kay (Cambridge), and Prof Nir Gov (Weizmann Institute). One of my primary research interests is to understand principles of self-organisation in the actin cytoskeleton which drives shape changes in animal cells. I have been predominantly working on cell motility in Dictyostelium amoebae as a biological model system, and more recently on cellular fluid uptake (macropinocytosis) where protrusion of the cell membrane followed by fusion results in internalisation of vesicles (see movie).
- Smart microscopy (CelFDrive), with Dr Scott Brooks, Prof Andrew McAinsh (Warwick Medical School), and company 3i (Intelligent Imaging Innovations)
- Graph neural networks for extracting dynamic features on biological cell surfaces, with Edward Offord
- Generative Adversarial Networks for augmenting 2D and 3D cell microscopy data, with Siddharth Srivastava
- Interactive Learning approaches to facilitate image annotation of complex biological data, with Jack Bacon
- Analysing mechanical cell-cell interactions in novel microfluidics chambers, with Dr Adam Smith, Dr Michael Smutny (Warwick Medical School), and Dr Melikhan Tanyeri (Duquesne University). 3D Segmentation and generative modelling is at the core of this project.
Current UKRI Funded Projects
| EPSRC/NSF, Sep 23 - Aug 26, £876,547, with Michael Smutny (PI), Warwick Medical School, and Melikhan Tanyeri, Duquesne University (USA) | CMMI-EPSRC: A novel multifunctional platform to study cell and nuclear mechanosensing |
| Innovate UK, Sep 25 - Feb 28, £295,400, with Andrew McAinsh (PI), Warwick Medical School | University of Warwick and Intelligent Imaging Innovations Ltd KTP 25_26 R1 |
|
EPSRC, Oct 23 - Mar 27, PhD studentship for Jack Bacon |
All UKRI grants
Warwick research profile
Publications
Google Scholar; Scopus; 
orcid.org/0000-0002-5317-603X
Further Affiliations
I am also a member of the Zeeman Institute for Systems Biology & Infectious Disease Epidemiology Research (SBIDER) and the Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology.