Clongenic Assay Tool

There are many methods to test the effectiveness of prospective anti-cancer drugs, such as Microtubule Analysis, Mitotic Arrest, etc. One of the methods employed in our lab is called Clonogenic Assay. This method tests the ability of cells to generate clones and spread through the body forming their own independent colonies, which eventually turn into metastatic tumors. Current software tools which can be used to analyze the results of this test are not able to separate colonies that are joined together at their borders. There is a need for a software tool which can recognize individual colonies and analyze the results of this method, examining the quantity and quality of colonies being formed (size, density, and other important parameters). We have made significant achievements towards creating such a tool. Our software has the ability to process images and separate colonies as individual objects from the background. Each object is analyzed for its circularity, and all objects are separated into individual circular colonies and non-circular complex objects that contain individual colonies joined together. Images which contain a mask of the object are created for each colony and used for subsequent analysis. We’re now working on a module which will be able to identify individual colonies in complex objects. We will then be able to record all of the important parameters for each individual colony.