Method and system for characterizing cell populations

A method for characterizing a cell population including cells of at least one of a set of cell stages, the method comprising:

• at a processing system, receiving image data corresponding to a set of images of the cell population captured at a set of time points;
• and
• at the processing system, generating an analysis based upon processing the set of images according to a cell stage classification module configured to automatically identify a cell stage of the set of cell stages, wherein processing the set of images includes:
• partitioning each image in the set of images into a set of pixel subsets,
• for each pixel subset in the set of pixel subsets for each image, generating a feature vector associated with each pixel subset, thereby producing a set of feature vectors corresponding to the set of pixel subsets for each image in the set of images, and
• training a machine learning classifier, with a training dataset, to identify each of the set of cell stages of the cell population captured in the set of images, using the set of feature vectors for each image in the set of images, thereby characterizing the cell population.

A method for characterizing a cell population including a set of cell subpopulaitons, the method comprising:

• at a processing system, receiving image data corresponding to a set of images of the cell population captured at a set of time points;
• at the processing system, generating an analysis based upon processing the set of images according to a cell graph representation module configured to characterize geometric and spatial features of the set of cell subpopulations, wherein processing includes:
• at a cell cluster segmentation module, segmenting, from at least one image of the set of images, a set of regions corresponding to the set of cell subpopulations of the cell population, each region defined by a set of nodes and a set of edges, and
• determining a set of parameters characterizing the cell population based upon an analysis of the set of nodes and the set of edges of at least one of the set of regions.