Fully Automated OCT-based Tissue Screening System
This system addresses the need for efficient tissue screening in drug discovery and related research fields, representing a significant advancement rather than an incremental improvement.
The study tackled the problem of high-throughput screening in ex vivo tissue culture by developing a fully automated optical coherence tomography (OCT) system, resulting in robust, rapid, and unbiased readouts validated in a mouse model of retinal degeneration.
This study introduces a groundbreaking optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging system dedicated for high-throughput screening applications using ex vivo tissue culture. Leveraging OCT's non-invasive, high-resolution capabilities, the system is equipped with a custom-designed motorized platform and tissue detection ability for automated, successive imaging across samples. Transformer-based deep learning segmentation algorithms further ensure robust, consistent, and efficient readouts meeting the standards for screening assays. Validated using retinal explant cultures from a mouse model of retinal degeneration, the system provides robust, rapid, reliable, unbiased, and comprehensive readouts of tissue response to treatments. This fully automated OCT-based system marks a significant advancement in tissue screening, promising to transform drug discovery, as well as other relevant research fields.