Bench biologist · scientific-software developer · daily Claude user
Cell biologist (PhD, University of York) and scientific-software developer at UC Irvine, Department of Neurobiology & Behavior; building Python imaging and analysis tools for the Parker and Pathak labs. Twenty-four years across single-molecule biophysics of ion channels, DNA nanotechnology, basic research into calcium channels in animals and plants, public-health pathogen testing, and machine learning for biological imaging.
First or co-first author on 8 papers, including Nature Communications — a sequencing-free approach to DNA data storage, cited by Microsoft's Project Silica — and Science Signaling, which revised a 1992 textbook value for cytoplasmic messenger diffusion roughly 30-fold and now propagates into Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology (2025). Co-inventor on a US patent for DNA-origami data storage.
Many of these repos started as a tool I needed to answer a specific experimental question, then got cleaned up so someone else could use it. Most are Python + Qt desktop applications with real GUIs, because the people I build for are bench scientists, not programmers.
I've been a daily Claude user since 2024, and a lot of what's on this profile exists because I've been deliberately probing what the technology can do as it has developed; starting with small scripts, and progressively taking on things I would not have attempted alone: multi-GUI analysis suites, deep-learning tracking pipelines, comparative-genomics screens across a thousand genomes. Around 80 commits here carry verifiable Co-Authored-By: Claude trailers.
Two of these projects are about the collaboration rather than just built with it:
- faceView — a desktop app for face-to-face conversation with Claude, with speech, hearing, and vision through an animated avatar. It exposes itself to Claude Code as a native MCP tool, with per-turn cost tracking and persistent per-person memory. ~266 passing tests.
- FLIKA — George's Edition — the FLIKA imaging platform with an integrated Claude assistant that can generate analysis plugins from natural language, wrapped in explicit safety controls for AI-generated scientific code: AST validation of generated plugins, detection of unsafe operations, session-level approval gates, and a safety-policy layer.
Working this way imposed its own discipline; a global configuration enforcing sub-500-line files and a per-project INTERFACE.md navigation map, so that both the human and the model can find their way around a codebase months later.
| CellScope | Automated cell detection, tracking, and morphometrics for DIC, phase-contrast, and multi-channel fluorescence time-lapse. Cellpose-SAM backbone with SAM2 gap-filling, five task-specific GUIs, VAMPIRE shape modes, and publication-ready statistics. |
| PIEZO1 Research Manuals | 30+ researcher-oriented manuals for the bioimaging software stack — FLIKA, ImageJ/FIJI, Cellpose, napari, Imaris, thunderSTORM, ilastik, StarDist, CARE/CSBDeep and more. Written for graduate students entering single-molecule imaging. |
| trajectory_analysis | Modular particle detection, linking, and diffusion analysis for TIRF and single-molecule data — MSD, radius of gyration, fractal dimension, anomalous-diffusion classification. |
| FLIKA — George's Edition + plugins | A fork of the FLIKA image-processing platform extended for SMLM, single-particle tracking, and calcium imaging, plus my plugin collection. |
| thunderstorm_python | A Python implementation of thunderSTORM for single-molecule localization microscopy. |
| piezo1_decode_magik | Pipeline combining DECODE localization, MAGIK graph-based tracking, and ROI calcium analysis. |
| calcium_phylogenomics | Phylogenomic analysis of Ca²⁺ signalling evolution across 1000+ plant genomes. |
| receptor_finder | Structural-bioinformatics pipeline using AlphaFold and molecular docking to screen plant proteomes for candidate InsP₃ and cADPR receptors. |
| calcium_simulator | Modelling and visualising intracellular Ca²⁺ signals — puffs, waves, and IP₃R cluster dynamics. |
| lightsheet_simulator · tirf_microscope_simulation | Synthetic ground-truth datasets for validating analysis pipelines against a known answer. |
| llm_RPG | A D&D-style RPG with LLM-powered NPCs; runs fully offline on a heuristic AI, or plugs into Ollama, Claude, or OpenAI for richer NPC minds. Built as a readable reference for anyone wanting to do the same. |
| textview | An AI-first PyQt6 file viewer with workspace RAG, multimodal chat, and an agent that can teach the app new file formats. 60+ languages, LaTeX, PDF editing, embedded Jupyter kernel. |
| autonomous_world | A living medieval open world where every NPC has jobs, emotions, memories, and goals — and the world keeps evolving whether you're watching or not. |
| organic_spacecraft | GESTALT — a conceptual design program for living, grown-from-a-seed spacecraft and habitats. |
| roomScanner | Native iOS LiDAR room scanning with 3D export for downstream Python analysis. |
…and quite a lot more — procedural landscapes, cellular automata, fractal music, Chladni patterns, Japanese ink marbling. I use small projects to learn things.
| Lab / institution | Focus | Key publication |
|---|---|---|
| Pathak Lab — UC Irvine | PIEZO1 mechanotransduction in hiPSC-derived cells and organoids | Bertaccini et al., Nat Commun 2025 |
| Boise State University | Digital nucleic acid memory — DNA-origami data storage (DARPA, with NIST) | Dickinson et al., Nat Commun 2021 · US Patent App. 17/443,312 |
| Parker Lab — UC Irvine | "Optical patch-clamp" imaging of single IP₃-receptor openings at 500 fps | Dickinson et al., Science Signaling 2016 · Biophys J 2012 |
| Patel Lab — University College London | NAADP receptors and lysosomal calcium signalling | Dickinson & Patel, Biochem J 2003 · J Biol Chem 2010 |
| Sanders Lab — University of York | Ligand-gated calcium mobilisation in higher plants (PhD, supervisor Prof. Dale Sanders FRS) | Navazio et al., PNAS 2000 |
| Idaho Bureau of Laboratories | Real-time PCR diagnostic assays for Cryptosporidium and Bordetella | — |
| Sound Science LLC | Aerial-imagery and ecological analysis for Lower Colorado River conservation | — |
gddickinson.github.io · Publications · Google Scholar · ORCID · @g_d_dickinson
Most repos here are research code released in the hope they're useful. If you're using one for published work and something is unclear, open an issue — I'd rather fix the docs than have you guess.