Cancer Cell Detection and Tracking Based on Local Interest Point Detectors

The automatic analysis of cell mobility has gained increasing relevance given the enormous amount of data that biology researchers have currently to analyze. However, most biology researchers still analyze cells by visual inspection alone, which is time consuming and prone to induce subjective bias. This makes automatic cell’s mobility analysis essential for large scale, objective studies of cells. To evaluate cancer cell’s mobility, biologists establish in vitro assays with cancer cells seeded on native surfaces or on surfaces coated with extracellular matrix components, recording time-lapse brightfield microscopy images. In such analysis only through the use of quantitative automatic analysis tools is it possible to gather evidence to firmly support biological findings.