LIFE SCIENCES


sCMOS sensors with quantum efficiency above 90 per cent, there is no advantage of using an EMCCD – it’s just more expensive.’ EMCCDs are backside illuminated and


the multiplication process before the readout means the final readout noise is less than one electron. However, as with all multiplication processes, the noise is amplified along with the signal, which effectively reduces the speed. In addition, the amplification process, by its nature, kills the crystal lattice in the CCD semiconductor material in the long run. Holst commented: ‘Over time the gain phenomenon will degrade, and aſter five to ten years the multiplication gain becomes a lot lower. When this happens scientists will have to replace their EMCCD equipment.’ Photometrics introduced a backside


Scientific CMOS is now rivalling EMCCDs for life science imaging


to be a lot of different voltage levels applied in a fast sequence to give the multiplication process,’ Holst explained. ‘Terefore, usually these cameras are cooled, bulky and quite expensive. Also, the application range for EMCCD cameras has diminished with the appearance of scientific CMOS.’ Scientific CMOS gives extremely low noise


of around one electron, which isn’t possible with CCDs; quantum efficiency is up to 80 per


AUTOMATED PATHOLOGY


Digital pathology is becoming more widely accepted as an alternative to the often laborious task of sectioning and staining tissue samples for analysis. The Knife Edge Scanning Microscope developed by San Francisco- based 3Scan is a fast, automated sectioning and imaging system that gives detailed, 3D images of tissue. It is able to slice approximately 3,600 sections per hour, or more than 28,000 per day, compared to 350 sections per day for a pathologist.


‘The KESM is able to simultaneously light and scan tissue samples, and because it produces many scans of the tissue, we can apply algorithms


to the images and spatially index each pixel to build 3D images of the model,’ said Todd Huffman, 3Scan CEO and co-founder. The system is able to render 3D imagery based on micron-level scans, which gives faster and more accurate diagnosis, and in some cases, earlier detection and management of disease. KESM stains tissue before cutting it. Sections are then imaged with Piranha CMOS and Piranha4 4K colour line scan cameras from Teledyne Dalsa. By combining sectioning and imaging, a large part of the traditional pathology workflow is automated. The machine generates more than a terabyte per cubic


20 Imaging and Machine Vision Europe • December 2017/January 2018


centimetre of data. It is able to run quantitative analysis on 3D image stacks of whole mouse organs, for instance, which are used in research and pre-clinical pharmaceuticals trials. This is extremely difficult, expensive and time-consuming with traditional manual techniques. ‘3Scan’s automated histology


platform fills the gap between radiology and pathology by allowing large-volume high-throughput imaging of tissue and tissue-scale diseases. This imaging technology is essential if ever we want to be able to use the power of modern computing to improve pathology outcomes,’ said Megan Klimen, 3Scan COO and co-founder.


cent, and can now surpass 90 per cent with backside illumination. Te sensors also have high resolution and high frame rate. ‘Tis combination of parameters, in my opinion, means that EMCCDs are only second best for a lot of the newer microscopy methods,’ commented Holst. He added: ‘Tere are some photo counting


applications that might still use EMCCDs, but now there are the new backside illuminated


illuminated scientific CMOS camera last year, the Prime 95B, and a second version this year, the Prime BSI with smaller pixels. ‘Te Prime 95B improved upon EMCCD cameras by giving a much better spatial resolution pixel size, going from 16µm down to 11µm,’ explained Mohindra. ‘One of the benefits of this is that it allows you to use a 100x magnification objective and properly spatially sample, which was one of the limitations of using EMCCDs.’ In addition, the Prime 95B sCMOS camera


has a 1.4-megapixel resolution, the area of the sensor is larger, and it runs around 20 to 30 per cent faster than an EMCCD, according to Mohindra. ‘We envisioned the Prime 95B as a camera that replaces the EMCCD level of sensitivity, where sensitivity is the absolute key


Section of a kidney stained to show the vascular network


@imveurope www.imveurope.com


PCO


3Scan and Teledyne Dalsa


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