Autofocusing and Polar Body Detection in Automated Cell Manipulation.

Autofocusing and feature detection are two essential processes for performing automated biological cell manipulation tasks. In this paper, we have introduced a technique capable of focusing on a holding pipette and a mammalian cell under a bright-field microscope automatically, and a technique that can detect and track the presence and orientation of the polar body of an oocyte that is rotated at the tip of a micropipette. Both algorithms were evaluated by using mouse oocytes.

Automatic segmentation of zona pellucida and its application in cleavage-stage embryo biopsy position selection.

A very important step of Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is embryo biopsy, in which process the zona pellucida (ZP) is cut open partially and a part of cellular material is extracted from the embryo. Recognition of the ZP is necessary not only for embryo biopsy, but also for other applications such as zona pellucida thickness variation (ZPTV), embryo dissection, etc. The ZP opening position is closely related to the cell survival rate after the biopsy.

Visual Servoed Three-Dimensional Cell Rotation System.

Three-dimensional (3-D) positioning and orientation of embryos/oocytes is necessary to facilitate micromanipulation tasks such as cell injection and cellular structural biopsy commonly performed under a microscope. Conventional cell orientation is performed manually by using a vacuum equipped micropipette to aspirate and release the cell, which is a trial-and-error approach. The conventional method relies heavily on the skill of the operator; it also suffers from low precision, low success rate and low controllability.