Amersham Biosciences Corp

Praelux Incorporated

Ge Healthcare Bio-sciences Corp.

Richard L Hansen

William Karsh

Timothy D Harris

Jay K Trautman

Neal A Nicklaus

Methods and apparatus for screening large numbers of chemical compounds and performing a wide variety of fluorescent assays, including live cell assays. The methods utilize a laser linescan confocal microscope with high speed, high resolution and multi-wavelength capabilities and real time data-processing. Imaging may be done at video-rates and with use of ultraviolet illumination.

Method and apparatus for screening chemical compounds

Systems and methods for acquiring images of biological samples and analyzing contrast features are provided. The present invention may determine whether a contrast feature in a image of a biological example qualifies as a grain (textural feature of interest). The size, intensity of contrast features, or other parameters may be tuned to find contrast features that correspond to features having significance in a given application. In addition, the total number of grains per image, the number of grains per sample, the number of grains per unit area, the area fraction occupied by grains, the ratio of intensity of grains to the intensity of the image, or other suitable characteristics may be determined.

Systems and methods for analyzing target contrast features in images of biological samples

Image acquisition and analysis systems and methods are provided. A ray-based approach may be used to process images for cell-based assays. Such cell-based assays may be used to evaluate drugs or other compounds or to perform other biological studies. A scanning laser microscope or other equipment may be used to gather image data from fluorescently-marked cells or other suitable specimens. The rays are radially-oriented with respect to the cell nuclei. Seed points within the nuclei may be identified. The rays may extend outward from the seed points or other suitable ray origins until the rays are terminated according to ray termination criteria. The intensity of the image data that is associated with each of the rays may be analyzed to generate various parameters. For example, a peak intensity of the image data along each ray may be identified. Statistical calculations may be performed.

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Pennington, NJ, United States of America

Richard L Hansen