Vision system for animal cell recognition in a bio-engineering process

An expert system for the recognition and counting of cells using image processing for mass production of interferon beta is described. The biological cells which make interferon beta are taken from animals and cultured on microcarriers, plastic balls/beads 150-200 μm in diameter floating in a culture solution. Cell images are obtained through a microscope connected to a TV camera. The number of cells in the culture vessel increases during a six-day period, and the expert system recognizes the state of cell growth during this time by means of image processing. The expert system is a more effective way to recognize and cluster cells on densely grown/distributed beads from the gray image data than simple image processing. The creature image segmentation method was also applied, and it is shown that this method can recognize the cell shape and location, avoiding individual differences on the plastic balls.