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Technology

Cell-IQ makes use of several unique technologies for:

Maintaing cells in an optimum environment for growth and development,
Capturing images of superior quality and
Analysing automatically the data generated by the Cell-IQ Imagen software

Optimum Cell Maintenance

To enable cells to thrive inside the systems incubator a special lid, Cell-Secure, has been designed and patented for use with the system. The Cell-Secure lid has both inlet and outlet ports enabling gas to be delivered directly and independantly to each culture plate. Direct delivery to the plate and not the incubator guarantees fast and accuarte delivery to the cells and significantly reduces the amount of gas required for each experiment. It also means that each plate can be supplied with a different gas mixture allowing cells to be studied for example in hypoxic conditions alongside those under standard conditions. Humidity can be controlled by use of an external bubble chamber or half filling spaces between the wells with water before sealing the plate. Both temperature and gas flow are monitored and recorded during each experiment. This data can be saved automatically for future reference.

All-in -focus Imaging

When cells are visualised with Cell-IQ the system scans through the sample using a dynamic z-stack taking images as regular intervals e.g. 1 micrometer apart. The best in focus pixels are then collated from all of the individual images and combined to produce a single all-in-focus result image which is then stored. All-in-focus images are of superior quality to a single layer image because all of the information contained within the that z-stack is captured and presented in the final image.

Automated Analysis

Cell-IQ Analyser software ultisizes a technology known as Machine Vision (a form of artificial intelligence) to identify and quantify cell types and phases. Machine vision is new to biological sciences but has been around for many years in other industry sectors, being a well established method for manufacturing in high speed and high precision electronics.

As a general rule any cell type/phase that can be identified by the cell biologist using a microscope can be identified using Cell-IQ. In order to analyse samples the cell biologist will teach the software what cells and phase they would like quantified. This teaching phase can also include the identification of cell structures such as neurites and multi-nucleated cells or large structures such as embryoid bodies. The teaching step only needs to be performed once and the information converted to machine vision technology generating an Analysis protocol. With the protocol complete samples can be processed over and over again with the assurance that they will all be subjected to the same set of recognition parameters for cell phase and type. Use of the Analyser software elimintaes the potential for operator variance and ensures results are quantified accurately, reproducibly and consistent not only from day to day, but between operators, laboratories and distant sites.

The digital images are stored so they can be easily shared or re-evaluated. If an unexpected event occurs in an experiment, such as the differentiation of an unanticipated cell type, the program can be modified to identify this new cell type without the need to repeat the experiment. Rather, the stored images are re-evaluated with the new set of parameters and the results analysed automatically with the new Analysis protocol.

			Cell-IQ Brochure

			Bibliography