Thermo Fisher Scientific Offers a Revolution in Personalized Cell Analysis at ASCB 2010

The Thermo Scientific CellInsight Personal Cell Imager offers a unique cost effective, easy to use, state-of-the-art, bench-top solution for researchers looking to gain the advantage of automated, quantitative imaging of cells for the first time, or those who need more scalability of their existing high content imaging assays.

The study of cell biology has been greatly advanced by the use of imaging of fluorescently labeled cells and cell lines. Many fields of cell biology research from neuroscience, through toxicology to stem cells are benefitting from investigating multiple targets in intact, living cells, compared to traditional biochemical assays. Over the past 10 years, automated, quantitative imaging of cells (often referred to as high content analysis) has gained traction leading to advances in our understanding of cellular function. However these advantages have not been available to every cell researcher, due to complexity of operation, cost, robustness and other factors.

The design of the CellInsight™ Personal Cell Imager addresses each of the barriers to adoption to bring all the benefits of imaging to all cell biology researchers in one simple to use, low cost platform. From the outset it is very easy to use, with a simplified workflow allowing simple 2-click image acquisition, autofocus and scanning and analysis of the sample.

The platform features a unique solid state illumination source, high efficiency filters and custom optical design to deliver high quality imaging and virtually maintenance free operation. The system is ideally suited for high throughput and typical plate scan times for the CellInsight are under 4 minutes for a 96 well plate to just over an hour for a 1536 plate for a benchmark 3 color assay. Robot compatibility ensures walk-away operation.

Assay development for cell imaging assays has long been a bottleneck so the CellInsight platform features the Thermo Scientific iDEV workflow software. This software brings sophisticated quantitative image analysis to the cell biologist using pre-built biologically relevant measurement tools that require no programming and no special knowledge other than the biology. Making sense of the rich multiparameter data generated from cell imaging can be overwhelming so the CellInsight platform includes the innovative Thermo Scientific iView software to provide intuitive, image centric tools and seamless integration with the Thermo Scientific HCi informatics software for data management and mining.

In summary, the CellInsight personal cell imaging (PCI) platform, provides the cell biology researcher with a simple to operate, low cost, bench-top automated imaging capability. Uniting powerful optical hardware, quantitative image analysis, informatics and automation coupled with a range of fluorescent probes, engineered cell lines and assay kits, cell biology researchers can investigate 100’s of cellular targets and advance their knowledge of cell function.

Visit booth 1023 to find out more.