Patent ID: 7269278

Claim:
A method of identifying boundaries of biological cells, the method comprising: receiving a first image of a field of cells in which a reference cell component of the cells is identified by a reference cell component marker image parameter, wherein the reference cell component is selected from the nucleus, centrosome, a chromosome and the Golgi complex; receiving a second image of the field of the cells in which a shape-indicative marker of the cells is identified by a cell shape-indicative marker image parameter; thresholding the cell shape-indicative marker in the second image to generate a digital representation of the second image comprising a cell shape-indicative marker portion and a background portion; segmenting the reference cell component in the first image to generate a digital representation of the first image (reference cell component mask); conceptually registering the reference cell component mask with the digital representation of the second image; and applying a watershed algorithm to data provided by the registered reference component mask and digital representation of the second image to segment the cells in the field such that individual cell boundaries for the cells in the field are identified.