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Cell-IQ enables high quality images
The collaboration between Prof James Richardson and Dr KP Lam was originally funded by the Modelling Methods for Medical Engineering (3ME) Initiative in 2008.
Members of ISTM based at the Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt Hospital in Oswestry have taken delivery of a Cell-IQ microscope with the additional capability to photograph cells over time in a controlled environment. Images can be reconstructed into a video, enabling accurate calculations of cell quantity, size and growth. The Cell-IQ was bought using donations and legacies held by the Institute of Orthopaedics plus a contribution from the Keele University HEFCE capital fund. It is located in the TORCH building for use by all the research groups at Oswestry, including
- Spinal Studies,
- Arthritis Research UK Tissue Engineering Centre,
- Rheumatology,
- Centre for Inherited Neuromuscular Disorders,
and is available for other Keele users and external collaborators too.
Its purchase arose through a collaboration between Keele’s Professor of Orthopaedics, Prof James Richardson (ISTM) and Lecturer in Computer Science Dr KP Lam (EPSAM). The collaboration was originally funded from a “Sandpit” meeting held in September 2008 through the Modelling Methods for Medical Engineering (3ME) Initiative. KP Lam suggested an idea for assessing the quality of a patient’s own cells before re-implantation back into their knee during a common clinical procedure carried out by James Richardson at Oswestry, and so together they have carried out a series of projects, culminating in buying the Cell-IQ. The project is a very good example of the multi-disciplinary research inspired and supported by the 3ME Initiative over a four year period, funded by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council. The project has recently won a fully-funded Industrial CASE studentship from the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council which is now being advertised: Spatiotemporal Biometrics for Stem Cell Specific Cellomics, closing date = 15 November 2012.
Dr Karina Wright is pictured above (left) with the Cell-IQ and Hannah Fox (right), a medical student from Cambridge University who was one of the first users of the equipment under an eight-week Wellcome Trust Scholarship. Charges for the Cell-IQ start at £200 per day for internal academic users; anyone interested in using it can contact Karina on 01691 404699.
A lay description of the capabilities of the Cell-IQ
CellIQ2 is a fully automated continuous live cell imaging platform using phase contrast microscopy (with 4-40x objective lens) and multi-channel fluorescence. It consists of a digital microscope and an integrated incubator designed to support short and longer term studies of two standard micro-plates simultaneously, with licensed software to capture and analyse images in 2/3D. Within the incubator, individual gas supplies to proprietary micro-plate covers convert standard/cell culture plates into two separate sealed perfusion chambers, with in-lets and out-let for gas, allowing simultaneous, customisable cell studies in two separate micro-environments; e.g. normoxic and hypoxic conditions.
Automated studies of the time-lapse image/data are facilitated (off-line) by a licensed software system (Imagen/Analyser) developed to incorporate machine learning and pattern recognition technologies, allowing it to be “trained” with cell morphology relevant to the identification of multiple cellular parameters such as different cell types, phases, features or lifecycle stages within a culture. This enables users to specify, measure and track changes in cell movements and morphological features as they divide, apoptose, migrate or differentiate into different cell types over time and/or in different cell culture conditions.
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