France-BioImaging Light My Cells 2 Challenge is open
We are happy to announce that the new edition of our machine learning competition, Light My Cells 2, is now open! This Challenge completes the previous Light My Cells in 2024 with additional data and a new prediction task.
Light My Cells 2 is organized in two phases, the validation phase (September 21st – November 30th) and the evaluation phase (December 1st – December 13th).
Find more information below.
The Challenge: a data machine learning competition
Since 2024, France-BioImaging organizes its data machine learning competition in the aim to respond to the microscopy community issues.
With Light My Cells 1, participants predicted fluorescence images of four cellular structures – nucleus, mitochondria, tubulin, and actin – from label-free transmitted-light microscopy images acquired using bright-field (BF), phase-contrast (PC), or differential interference contrast (DIC) modalities. This technique is also known as in-silico labelling.
This Challenge established a large-scale, multi-site benchmark for evaluating in-silico fluorescence prediction from transmitted-light unlabeled microscopy images under realistic imaging variability.
Light My Cells 2 introduces additional training data and a new prediction task to reconstruct the fluorescence maximum-intensity projection (MIP) from transmitted-light image stacks.
Light My Cells 2 tasks
To help the participants build their algorithm, they have access to a training dataset of 76 studies, which represents more than 150 000 images. From these acquisition-sets, participants will have to create an algorithm to:
- Predict the best-focused output-images of four fluorescently labelled organelles from label-free 2D transmitted light input-images.
- Predict the MIP output-images of four fluorescently labelled organelles from a stack of 2D input-images of label-free transmitted light.
Key informations
The Challenge is now open and you can register to access the training dataset and start building your algorithm!
From September 21st, 2026, the validation phase begins – you will be able to test your algorithm and the submission process, up to five test submissions.
From December 1st to 13th, 2026, the evaluation phase will start – participants will have one final submission.
The results will be announced on December 18th, 2026.
Ready to take part in the Challenge? Discover Light My Cells 2 here: https://lightmycells2.grand-challenge.org/lightmycells2/
