Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

Hitachi, ThinkCyte Partner to Develop AI-Driven Cell Analysis, Sorting System

NEW YORK – Hitachi said on Wednesday that it is partnering with ThinkCyte to develop an artificial intelligence-driven cell analysis and sorting system.

The firms plan to collaborate with pharmaceutical companies and research institutes working in the field of regenerative medicine and cell therapy to expedite commercialization of the system.

Tokyo-based Hitachi provides large-scale automated induced pluripotent stem cell culture equipment, cell processing facilities, manufacturing execution systems, and biosafety cabinets to support the regenerative medicine and cell therapy industries, and has been collaborating with others to develop technologies to reduce manufacturing costs and create stable and reliable instruments. It said that the codeveloped system is expected to help it reduce the cost of manufacturing regenerative medicine and cell therapy products.

ThinkCyte, also headquartered in Tokyo with an additional office in San Carlos, California, performs R&D focused on high-throughput single-cell analysis and sorting technology. The company has developed so-called "ghost cytometry" for high-throughput and high-content single-cell sorting. Described in a report in Science in 2018, ghost cytometry integrates advanced imaging, machine learning, and microfluidics to isolate target cells with high throughput and minimal cell damage.

By combining this technology with Hitachi's know-how and large-scale instrument manufacturing capabilities, the partners plan to develop a system to enable high-speed, label-free cell isolation with high accuracy, which has been difficult to achieve with existing cell sorting techniques, Hitachi said.

The Scan

Genetic Testing Approach Explores Origins of Blastocyst Aneuploidy

Investigators in AJHG distinguish between aneuploidy events related to meiotic missegregation in haploid cells and those involving post-zygotic mitotic errors and mosaicism.

Study Looks at Parent Uncertainties After Children's Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Diagnoses

A qualitative study in EJHG looks at personal, practical, scientific, and existential uncertainties in parents as their children go through SCID diagnoses, treatment, and post-treatment stages.

Antimicrobial Resistance Study Highlights Key Protein Domains

By screening diverse versions of an outer membrane porin protein in Vibrio cholerae, researchers in PLOS Genetics flagged protein domain regions influencing antimicrobial resistance.

Latent HIV Found in White Blood Cells of Individuals on Long-Term Treatments

Researchers in Nature Microbiology find HIV genetic material in monocyte white blood cells and in macrophages that differentiated from them in individuals on HIV-suppressive treatment.