AI Organoid Image Analysis

Introduction

Organoids are microscopically small patient-derived 3D organs that can be cultivated in the laboratory over months, mimicking human organs and their functions in vitro. These mini-organs have a human genetic background, maintain disease traits in vitro, and are currently available for almost every human organ.

Advantages of Organoids

Due to these advantages, organoid research and its commercial applications are rapidly evolving and increasingly used. Given the high variability of these complex 3D structures, classical cell culture-based image quantification tools do not accurately capture organoids in microscope images.

Challenges in Image Quantification

This has resulted in much image quantification at our laboratory—like in many others—being performed using manual, time-consuming tools with high researcher variability. In sum, there is a global challenge to quantify organoid experiments in a standardized manner.

Proposed Solution

We propose the first Software as a Service (SaaS) toolbox explicitly tailored to organoid imaging, building upon powerful AI-based algorithms for cutting-edge image quantification. This solution is independent of the underlying microscope and culture system hardware.

Features of the SaaS Toolbox

The SaaS seamlessly fits into the analysis workflow by offering a user-friendly approach to:

1. Upload brightfield and immunofluorescence microscope images and videos of organoid cultures.
2. Automatically quantify these images using AI models, generating a range of organoid metrics.

Benefits of Automation

Overall, the provided automation drastically reduces analysis time, promotes accurate phenotypical organoid analyses, and ensures standardization of results between different researchers, culture conditions, and imaging hardware.

Conclusion

Integrated into an easy-to-use web app, the SaaS tool is of great interest and essential for researchers working in the emerging field of organoids, as shown by the high utilization in our laboratory and the high interest from external partner institutions.