City University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong Centre for Cerebro-cardiovascular Health Engineering Limited

Fei Pan

Dong Sun

Shuxun Chen

Yang Jiao

Hon-Fu Raymond Chan

Yutong Wu

Kangning Cui

In cell instance segmentation of an original cell image obtained by microscopy, the original cell image is rotated by a rotation angle to yield a rotated cell image. A first machine-learning model for cell instance segmentation processes the original and rotated cell images such that effectively, horizontal and oblique boxes are used in bounding cells of the original cell image for enhancing cell-segmentation accuracy. A set of predictions is generated for each cell instance identified from the original and rotated cell images, yielding a plurality of sets of predictions for all cell instances. The plurality of sets of predictions is processed to remove any set having predicted space not simply connected, any unwanted set classified by a second machine-learning model as a poor indicator according to a certain performance criterion, and any redundant set. The plurality of sets of predictions then produces a segmentation map for the original cell image.

Method for accurate segmentation of unstained living adherent cells in differential interference contrast images

Two or more micropipettes are used to increase a microinjection throughput in an automated system for microinjecting adherent cells on a Petri dish. In the system, a motorized stage carrying the Petri dish sequentially visits the cells according to an optimized injection sequence. The sequence is selected by minimizing a total distance traveled by the motorized stage such that each cell is visited once by one of the micropipettes. Using multiple micropipettes advantageously reduces the minimized total distance over using a single micropipette to thereby increase the throughput. The optimized injection sequence is obtained by solving an equality-generalized traveling salesman problem. Each micropipette is mounted on a motorized micromanipulator. The motorized stage and motorized micromanipulators operate coordinately that each micromanipulator goes down or up during movement of the motorized stage to compensate for unevenness between a focus plane and a moving trajectory of the motorized stage.

Automated system for high-throughput microinjection of adherent cells

Growing community of inventors

Hong Kong, China

Fei Pan