Motility Contrast Imaging for Drug Screening Applications

Department of Physics, Korea Military Academy, Seoul 139-799, Korea(Received May 22, 2015 : revised July 16, 2015 : accepted July 16, 2015)Motility contrast imaging is a coherence-domain imaging technique that uses cellular motility as a fully endogenous imaging contrast agent. Motility is measured inside tissue using a digital holographic coherence gate that extracts dynamic speckle from fixed depths. The dynamic speckle arises from the normal organelle motion inside cells, and from the movement of the cellular membranes driven by the cytoskeleton. It measures cellular activity and the effects of temperature and osmolarity. Motion is sensitive to cytoskeletal drugs, such as the antimitotic drugs used for cancer chemotherapy, and the effects of drug combinations also can be monitored. Motility contrast imaging is a potential tissue-based assay platform for high-throughput screening of pharmaceuticals.Keywords : Tissue-based screening, Drug combinations, Digital holography, Dynamic speckle, Anti-mitotic drugOCIS codes : (090.1995) Digital holography; (110.6150) Speckle imaging; (170.1650) Coherence imaging; (170.0170) Medical optics and biotechnology; (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging