The invention enables efficient, rapid, and sensitive enumeration of living cells by detecting microscopic colonies derived from in situ cell division using large area imaging. Microbial enumeration tests based on the invention address an important problem in clinical and industrial microbiology—the long time needed for detection in traditional tests—while retaining key advantages of the traditional methods based on microbial culture. Embodiments of the invention include non-destructive aseptic methods for detecting cellular microcolonies without labeling reagents. These methods allow for the generation of pure cultures which can be used for microbial identification and determination of antimicrobial resistance.

A method for optical imaging of single protein molecules including tethering single protein molecules via a flexible polymer linker to a glass slide having a surface coated with an indium tin oxide (ITO) so that the single protein molecules are tethered to the coated surface. The single protein molecules are driven into oscillation by applying an alternating electric field to the coated surface and the glass slide is located in the field of view of an objective lens. Incident light is directed onto the coated surface from an angle to generate an evanescent field and produce scattered light. The scattered light is collected and imaged by a CMOS imager to record a sequence of images of the scattered light. A Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) filter is applied to each pixel of the recorded image sequence to produce an oscillation amplitude image from which size, charge, and mobility of the plurality of single protein molecules can be determined.

A cell capture system including an array, an inlet manifold, and an outlet manifold. The array includes a plurality of parallel pores, each pore including a chamber and a pore channel, an inlet channel fluidly connected to the chambers of the pores; an outlet channel fluidly connected to the pore channels of the pores. The inlet manifold is fluidly connected to the inlet channel, and the outlet channel is fluidly connected to the outlet channel. A cell removal tool is also disclosed, wherein the cell removal tool is configured to remove a captured cell from a pore chamber.

A cell evaluation system includes physical measurement unit, a database, and evaluation unit. The evaluation unit refers to a relevance stored in the database, searches reference measurement information based on measurement information of a cell newly measured via the physical measurement unit, and evaluates the cell with biological measurement information associated with the searched reference measurement information.

Even for the case where cells such as human epidermal keratinocytes form a dense colony, or the case where cell contours are indefinite, each of the cells is automatically tracked with high precision, and behavior of each cell is analyzed with good precision. There is provided a method for analyzing behavior of a cell, which comprises a detection step of detecting positions of a plurality of cells for every frame of time-lapse images, while determining whether a candidate region extracted from the frame is a cell region by using a dictionary containing image data of cell nuclei; and a tracking step of tracking each cell by using a state space model using position of a most adjacent cell within a predetermined distance from a predicted position as observation data. When any cell is not found within a certain distance from the predicted position, data are considered missing.

Provided is an observation device including: a stereo image-acquisition optical system that acquires images of cells floating in a culture fluid inside a culture vessel; and an analyzer that calculates a cell density of the cells on the basis of the images acquired by the stereo image-acquisition optical system, wherein the analyzer identifies a three-dimensional position of each of the cells included in the images and calculates the cell density on the basis of the number of cells present within a predetermined three-dimensional region.

A particle monitoring device includes a camera sensor for imaging particles, a set of light sources, and an optical component. A first light source provides light of a first color component. A second light source provides light of a second color component. The optical component receives light of the first color component in a first direction from the first light source, and redirects the light of the first color component in an output direction towards the particles to illuminate the particles using light of the first color component. The optical component receives light of a second color component in a second direction, different from the first direction, from the second light source, and redirects the light of the second color component in the output direction towards the particles to illuminate the particles using light of the second color component.

The invention relates to a method for digitally staining a cell and/or a medical preparation, the method comprising the following steps: determining three-dimensional information of a cell and/or of a medical preparation by means of an analyser for analysing a medical sample, the analyser comprising an apparatus for determining the three-dimensional information of the cell and/or of the medical preparation; digitally staining the cell and/or the medical preparation according to a predetermined correlation between the three-dimensional information of the cell and/or of the medical preparation and the staining of a corresponding cell and/or medical preparation and/or cellular and/or sub-cellular structures of the cell and/or of the medical preparation by means of a staining protocol; representing the digitally stained cell and/or the preparation, the representation involving a predetermined defocus region, and regions of the cell and/or of the preparation being represented by means of different digital staining in the area of the defocus region as corresponding modulations of colour intensities and/or as mixed colour.

A method for classifying and counting objects recoverable from a urine sample processed onto a slide. The method includes the following steps: receiving at least one digitalized image of the whole slide; detecting connected components by segmentation of the image of the whole slide; classifying the detected connected components into countable connected components and uncountable connected components using a classifier; for the countable connected components using an object detection model to obtaining the number of objects for each class; for the uncountable components using a semantic segmentation model to obtaining the number of objects for each class; summing up the number of objects for each class obtained from the semantic segmentation model and the object detection model outputting a number of objects for each class.

Provided are an imaging system and an imaging device capable of generating a super-resolution interference fringe image of an object to be observed flowing through a flow channel. A light source that irradiates light in a first direction and irradiates light toward a flow channel through which an object to be observed flows in a second direction orthogonal to the first direction, an imaging sensor that has an imaging surface orthogonal to the first direction and on which a plurality of pixels are two-dimensionally arranged in a manner non-parallel to the second direction and that images light passing through the flow channel to output an interference fringe image, and an information processing device that generates a super-resolution interference fringe image based on a plurality of interference fringe images output from the imaging sensor are included.