Ex vivo cell culture, especially the culture of stem cells, is a valuable and widely used technique. The appearance of unlabeled cultured cells contains significant information about the cell's identity, including its differentiation status and lineage. However, mere visual inspection of cells is a subjective process subject to inconsistencies between microscopists. This disclosure provides methods of quantifying cells' appearance, validating identity with known biomarkers, allowing automated classification of cells as well as automated segmentation and delineation of the borders of a cell colony. Also provided are systems and methods for comparing and standardizing cells cultured by different scientists using different cell culture methods.
STEM CELL BIOINFORMATICS