A principal focus highlighting recent advances in cell based therapies concerns the development of effective treatments for osteoarthritis. Earlier clinicaltrials have shown that 80% of patients receiving mesenchymal stem cell(MSC) based treatment have improved their quality of life by alleviating pain whilst extending the life of their natural joints. The current challenge facing researchers is to identify the biological differences between the treatments that have worked and those which have shown little improvement. One possible candidate for the difference in treatment prognosis is an examination of the proliferation of the ( type) cells as they grow. To further understanding of the proliferation and differentiation of MSC, non-invasive live cell imaging techniques have been developed which capture important cell events and dynamics in cell divisions over an extended period of time. An automated image analysis procedure capable of tracking cell confluence over time has also been implemented, providing an objective and realistic estimation of cell growth within continuous live cell cultures. The proposed algorithm accounts for the halo artefacts that occur in phase microscopy. In addition to a favourable run-time performance, the method was also validated using continuous live MSC cultures, with consistent and meaningful results.

Date Published: 4 March 2014
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 8947, Imaging, Manipulation, and Analysis of Biomolecules, Cells, and Tissues XII, 89471I (4 March 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2039929

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8947:
Imaging, Manipulation, and Analysis of Biomolecules, Cells, and Tissues XII
Daniel L. Farkas; Dan V. Nicolau; Robert C. Leif, Editor(s)