AI Assisted Tumoroid Viability Assays Using Widefield Microscopy

Presented: Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Summary

Tumoroid viability assays are critical to functional precision oncology. In this webinar Drs. Evan F Cromwell and Chris Shumate will present how to streamline these assays using Pu·MA System® EC automated tumoroid assay platform and Lumascope widefield microscope with AI-assisted image analysis.

Functional precision oncology assays phenotypic changes in ex vivo patient-derived tumor models to predict efficacy of therapeutics. Fluorescence imaging is a key readout for such assays and is often used to determine tumor viability. Performing assays with complex 3D cell models can be challenging in standard multiwell plates. The Pu·MA System flowchips overcome such issues with a protected sample chamber that keeps tumoroids in place and undamaged during reagent transfers. The flowchip bottom is a thin optically clear polymer compatible with high resolution fluorescent imaging to allow unperturbed phenotypic sample analysis. Confocal imaging is the gold standard for imaging 3D cell models, however, it has significant time overhead due to multiple Z-plane acquisition, produces large data sets, and requires complex image analysis. Widefield microscopy acquires data from all Z-planes at once which gives it advantages with speed and ease of use. While this limits single cell analysis, global tumoroid responses such as viability or general biomarker expression can be well characterized. In this webinar, Dr. Cromwell and Dr. Shumate describe streamlined tumoroid viability assays using Pu·MA System EC and flowchips and show how Lumascope 850 in conjunction with AI- assisted analysis can produce equivalent viability results compared to confocal microscopy.