Automation of Challenging Spatial-Temporal Biomedical Observations with the Adaptive Scanning Optical Microscope (ASOM)

Biological studies, drug discovery, and medical diagnostics benefit greatly from automated microscope platforms that can outperform even the most skilled human operators in certain tasks. However, the common approach of combining a traditional optical microscope design with a moving stage suffers from relatively low dynamic bandwidth and agitation to the specimen. This paper describes an automated microscope station which is based on the novel adaptive scanning optical microscope (ASOM) that combines a high speed post-objective scanning mirror, a custom design scanner lens, and a MEMS deformable mirror to correct for off-axis aberrations to achieve a greatly expanded field of view. Particularly suitable for observing challenging spatial-temporal biological events, the dynamic performance of the ASOM is 10-100 times faster than a moving stage without any agitation to the specimen. After describing the layout and operating principle of the ASOM imaging subsystem, we present a system architecture for an automated microscope system suitable for the ASOM's unique imaging capabilities. We then describe a low cost experimental prototype of the ASOM that demonstrates all critical optical characteristics of the instrument. Finally, we present initial biological (living nematode worms) and medical (cancer biopsy sample) imaging experiments obtained with the experimental apparatus and discuss the impact of the ASOM on such biomedical activities. The work summarized in this paper is a critical step towards realizing a fully operational and high performance ASOM based imaging platform to perform cutting edge biological research and high throughput medical diagnostics