PerkinElmer Introduces Enhanced Software and Live Cell Imaging Capabilities for Opera® High Content Screening System

PerkinElmer, Inc., a global leader focused on improving the health and safety of people and the environment, has announced several new hardware and software features for the Company’s flagship Opera® High Content Screening (HCS) System to enhance its live cell imaging and analysis capabilities.

The enhancements to the Opera system will enable biopharmaceutical and academic researchers to perform improved live cell imaging assays, for more efficient drug discovery and life science research workflow.

The new features increase ease of use of the Opera system’s Acapella® High Content Imaging and Analysis Software, which now includes assay-centric building blocks to significantly increase productivity through an intuitive software interface This expands the availability of advanced high content screening and analysis to a wider user base, allowing richer and more relevant data to be accessible earlier in the process.

The Opera system’s new transmitted light module with digital phase-contrast will enable users to image and segment cells that have not been labeled fluorescently. This feature is especially useful for live cell applications as it eliminates the need to label cells, thus diminishing potential labeling artifacts, cell damage, assay costs and time.

“We understand the importance of making our high performance systems even easier to use in order to continue to improve our customers’ research workflow,” said Jacob Tesdorpf, director of high content instruments and applications, PerkinElmer. “The new Opera user interface is designed to enable more scientists than ever before to benefit from this intuitive and powerful system. Now end-users can perform even the most challenging imaging assay applications with live cells, for more scientifically and drug discovery-relevant applications.”

PerkinElmer’s PhenoLOGIC™ machine-learning technology is now available for the Acapella software, and will enable Acapella software users to classify different cell populations or regions by simple point-and-click operations. In addition, a new 4X objective lens will enable users to quickly scan entire wells from which they can choose an area to examine in more detail.