Cytomics is the high-content analysis of cell-systems [6, 78]. The area of Cytomics and Systems Biology received great attention during the last years as it harbours the promise to substantially impact on various fields of biomedicine, drug discovery, predictive medicine [6] and may have major potential for regenerative medicine. In regenerative medicine Cytomics includes process control of cell preparation and culturing using non-invasive detection techniques, quality control and standardization for GMP and GLP conformity and even prediction of cell fate based on sophisticated data analysis. Cytomics requires quantitative and stoichiometric single cell analysis. In some areas the leading cytometric techniques represent the cutting edge today. Many different applications/variations of multicolour staining were developed for flow- or slide-based cytometry (SBC) analysis of suspensions and sections to whole animal analysis [78]. SBC has become an important analytical technology in drug discovery, diagnosis and research and is an emerging technology for systems analysis [78]. It enables high-content high-throughput measurement of cell suspensions, cell cultures and tissues. In the last years various commercial SBC instruments were launched principally enabling to perform similar tasks. Standardisation as well as comparability of different instruments is a major challenge. Hyperspectral optical imaging may be implemented in SBC analysis for label free cell detection based on cellular autofluorescence [3]. All of these developments push the systemic approach of the analysis of biological specimens to enhance the outcome of regenerative medicine.

Date Published: 29 February 2008
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 6859, Imaging, Manipulation, and Analysis of Biomolecules, Cells, and Tissues VI, 68590L (29 February 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.761495

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6859:
Imaging, Manipulation, and Analysis of Biomolecules, Cells, and Tissues VI
Daniel L. Farkas; Dan V. Nicolau; Robert C. Leif, Editor(s)