3D cell feature measurement with a diffraction imaging method

Flow cytometry has been proven to be a very versatile tool for cell biology research and clinical applications. A drawback of conventional technique lies in the fundamental limit of extracting morphological characteristics of the interrogated cells. In this paper, we present recent results of instrumentation design of flow cytometer systems with a new diffraction imaging method for the of 3D cell features measurement consisting of a jet-in-fluid flow chamber, a dual-polarization imaging system and a friendly human-computer interaction interface. A precise fluid control unit has been developed for producing stable laminar flow that is critical for acquisition of dual-polarization diffraction images and cell classification. Virtual simulation and experiment test results of the flow control unit and the new system with polystyrene microspheres and cells indicated the strong correlations between the diffraction image patterns and the 3D morphology of the particles.