Digital holographic microscopy for determining a viral infection status

1. A method for providing a viral infection status of cells incubating in a bioreactor, comprising:

receiving holographic information of a cell sample comprising a suspension of cells from the bioreactor, and

determining from the holographic information, the viral infection status of the cells, wherein

the holographic information comprises an intensity image and a quantitative phase contrast image reconstructed from a digital hologram obtained by digital holographic microscopy,

the viral infection status is determined from cellular parameter data comprising one or more measured cellular parameters (MCPs), each MCP being a value,

the one or more MCPs are measured from the holographic information, and include at least F44 and/or F47,

F44 is a phase texture type property measuring a contrast of the reconstructed quantitative phase image between a pixel and its neighbours over a cell surface,

F47 is a phase texture type property measuring a spatial closeness of a co-occurrence matrix to a diagonal matrix in the reconstructed quantitative phase image.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the determining comprises using a predictive model trained using a training set of cells of known viral infection status and measured cellular parameters.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the predictive model uses a machine learning method such as a neural network method, random forest trees or deep learning method.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the viral infection status is provided in real time.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the viral infection status of the at least one cell includes one or more of: an indication of a presence or absence of a viral infection, a probability of an infection, a degree of infection, a stage of infection, quantity of virus.

6. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising outputting a report comprising the viral infection status of the at least one cell.

7. The method according to claim 1 performed at a remote processing centre.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the suspension of cells is pumped from a bioreactor, and returned to the bioreactor after the holographic information has been obtained.

9. A system comprising:

a computing device configured to execute the method according to claim 1 , and

a digital holographic microscope (DHM).

10. The system according to claim 9 , wherein the DHM comprises a light source emitting at least partially coherent light, an interferometer, and an image sensor.

11. A computing device configured to perform a method according claim 1 , said computing device configured to:

receive holographic information of at least one cell in a cell sample obtained by digital holographic microscopy (DHM), and

determine from the holographic information, viral infection status of the at least one cell.

12. A non-transitory computer readable medium having a program stored thereon for executing a computing device or system to carry out the method according to claim 1 .