Recently LeafLabs hosted a pizza party/ grant writing jam session at the Mcgovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. The purpose of the event was to have our engineers and scientists to talk about SBIRs, STTRs, and the collaborative grant writing process with PI’s, researchers, and graduate students.

Lotus is a LeafLabs project supported by a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health, under Award Number R43MH109332, with the goal of using light-field microscopy to visualize neural activity in the zebrafish brain at single neuron resolution. In order to perform high-speed volumetric calcium imaging, used to visualize neural activity, we have proposed a microscope design with a frame rate of 300FPS and resolution of 4096 by 3072 pixels, to capture the entire neonatal zebrafish brain.

We made our triumphant return to Shiso Kitchen, for another great cooking class, for our most recent team activity! On the menu, we had eggplant, potato, tomato, and white bean plaki, Mediterranean couscous, shrimp and mushroom skewers, and cinnamon sugar phyllo cups filled with mixed berries. Needless to say, it was delicious. Not only that but we all had a lot of fun together. Team activity success!

Every now and then, LeafLabs has the pleasure of participating in outreach activities, giving back and engaging with the broader community. In the past, we’ve sponsored robotics competitions and volunteered at hackathons. This year, we decided to take advantage of MIT’s Independent Activities Period, to teach a class on something we’re passionate about: computer music.