Combining brightfield and fluorescent channels for cell image segmentation and morphological analysis in images obtained from an imaging flow cytometer

A method comprising:

• receiving high resolution images of a plurality of moving cells in a stream of a fluid at acquired by an imaging flow cytometer, wherein the imaging flow cytometer combines fluorescence sensitivity of standard flow cytometry with spatial resolution and quantitative morphology of digital microscopy, wherein the high resolution images acquired of each of the plurality of moving cells includes a brightfield image, a side scatter image, and a plurality of different fluorescent images respectively associated with a plurality of different spectral bands of fluorescent channels that are spatially aligned to each other;
• using an analysis framework with statistical modeling to extract salient morphological features from the high resolution images of the plurality of moving cells;
• and
• using a classifier engine on the extracted salient morphological features to classify cell types of the plurality of moving cells in the high resolution images.