diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci-backend.yml b/.github/workflows/ci-backend.yml
index 3eb69b44..cef52231 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci-backend.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci-backend.yml
@@ -17,10 +17,10 @@ jobs:
 
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@v2
-      - name: Set up Python 3.9
+      - name: Set up Python 3.12
         uses: actions/setup-python@v2
         with:
-          python-version: 3.9
+          python-version: 3.12
       - name: Configure cache
         id: python-cache
         uses: actions/cache@v2
diff --git a/backend/README.md b/backend/README.md
index 89fcb127..a46ee067 100644
--- a/backend/README.md
+++ b/backend/README.md
@@ -366,4 +366,29 @@ pytest
 
 Transliteration requires installing the [PyICU](https://pypi.org/project/PyICU/) bindings.
 
-See the documentation ["Installing PyICU"](https://gitlab.pyicu.org/main/pyicu#installing-pyicu) for additional instructions for your operating system.
\ No newline at end of file
+See the documentation ["Installing PyICU"](https://gitlab.pyicu.org/main/pyicu#installing-pyicu) for additional instructions for your operating system.
+
+For macOS, you can try the following:
+
+Install `icu4c`:
+```
+brew install icu4c
+```
+
+Determine the installed version:
+```
+ls $HOMEBREW_CELLAR/icu4c
+```
+
+In my case, it was 73.2
+
+Set up required environment variables for the PyICU build process.
+
+```
+export ICU_VERSION=73  # required because PyICU detects this using
+                       # pkg-config, but icu4c does not register
+                       # itself with pkg-config in recent versions
+export PYICU_INCLUDES=$HOMEBREW_CELLAR/icu4c/73.2/include
+export PYICU_LFLAGS=-L$HOMEBREW_CELLAR/icu4c/73.2/lib
+pip install "PyICU>=2.9,<3"
+```
diff --git a/backend/backend-dev.dockerfile b/backend/backend-dev.dockerfile
index e4137de5..73d3f64e 100644
--- a/backend/backend-dev.dockerfile
+++ b/backend/backend-dev.dockerfile
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-FROM python:3.9 AS build
+FROM python:3.12 AS build
 WORKDIR /opt/scaife-stack/src/
 RUN pip install --disable-pip-version-check --upgrade pip setuptools wheel virtualenv
 ENV PATH="/opt/scaife-stack/bin:${PATH}" VIRTUAL_ENV="/opt/scaife-stack"
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ RUN set -x \
     && virtualenv /opt/scaife-stack \
     && pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
 
-FROM python:3.9
+FROM python:3.12
 ENV PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1 \
     PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 \
     PYTHONPATH=/opt/scaife-stack/src/ \
diff --git a/backend/requirements.txt b/backend/requirements.txt
index 20418921..4a7b01b2 100644
--- a/backend/requirements.txt
+++ b/backend/requirements.txt
@@ -10,10 +10,10 @@ gunicorn==20.0.0
 # TODO: Package in scaife-viewer-atlas
 jsonlines==2.0.0
 more_itertools==8.12.0
-pandas==1.5.2
+pandas<2
 pygtrie==2.5.0
 PyICU>=2.9,<3
 requests>=2.0.6
-scaife-viewer-atlas @https://github.com/scaife-viewer/backend/archive/17bb7d538e1d89a7c81574f435d292d4c1a98134.zip#subdirectory=atlas
+scaife-viewer-atlas @https://github.com/scaife-viewer/backend/archive/89bb569d97e629b7e1f46f0948a321d1a42d0b59.zip#subdirectory=atlas
 thefuzz==0.19.0
 whitenoise==4.1.4
diff --git a/heroku.dockerfile b/heroku.dockerfile
index 4154ca80..461f1162 100644
--- a/heroku.dockerfile
+++ b/heroku.dockerfile
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ RUN yarn build
 # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
 # backend
 # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
-FROM python:3.9 AS backend-build
+FROM python:3.12 AS backend-build
 WORKDIR /opt/scaife-stack/src/
 RUN pip install --disable-pip-version-check --upgrade pip setuptools wheel virtualenv
 ENV PATH="/opt/scaife-stack/bin:${PATH}" VIRTUAL_ENV="/opt/scaife-stack"