Computational microscopy based-system and method for automated imaging and analysis of pathology specimens

A near-field Fourier ptychographic system for assessing a biological sample, comprising:

• at least one light source configured to illuminate a biological sample positioned relative to the at least one light source;
• a diffuser configured to diffuse light produced by the at least one light source, wherein the light is diffused in a speckled pattern either before the light interacts with the biological sample or after the light has interacted with the biological sample;
• a sensor configured to capture a plurality of illuminated images with an embedded speckle pattern based on the diffused light;
• and
• a processor and a non-transitory computer-readable medium with instructions stored thereon, wherein the processor is arranged to execute the instructions, the processor being further arranged to:
• characterize a speckled pattern to be applied by the diffuser,
• iteratively reconstruct the plurality of speckled illuminated images of the biological sample to recover an image stack of reconstructed images,
• stitch together each image in the image stack to create a whole slide image, wherein each image of the image stack at least partially overlaps with a neighboring image, and
• identify one or more features of the biological sample, wherein the one or more features are selected from a group consisting of:
• cell count, nucleus, edges, groupings, clump size, and a combination thereof.