Tomography System to Acquire 3D Images of Cells in Laminar Flow: Hardware Architecture

The measurement of the frequency of micronuclei induced in cells by genotoxic agent exposure is widely used for analysis of cytogenetic damage. Nevertheless, the conventional microscope analysis does not provide enough sensitivity, and the manual microscope scoring of micronuclei is a tedious and time-consuming procedure. A new flow-cytometry measurement device with specific hardware and software innovations helps in solving such problem. The paper describes the results of a research project aimed to produce a tomography system able to acquire 3D images of cells in laminar flow. This research was supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) under the project FIRB 2001 RBAUOIZMZ5. On the basis of this research an innovative image flow cytometer has been designed and prototyped. The innovations concern with both the hardware and the software architecture. The paper focuses on the hardware innovations introduced in the standard cyto-fluorimeter architecture to automatically identify and count the cells including micronuclei. The software innovations are described in a successive paper