Problem:
A manufacturer of biological microscopy products asked us to develop hardware, software and advanced FPGA components for the next generation of a system that allows researchers to image and target specific cells of interest for investigating advanced cures for cancer and AIDS. This generation of an earlier device now must incorporate a PCIe interface, a multi-gigabit downstream link to the optics head and an optics head assembly with a high-resolution DMD.

Solution:
To meet these requirements, Bytes By Design is in the process of developing the Windows application, a custom PCIe board with a Virtex 5 based FPGA and gigabit downstream link to the optics head controlled by Xilinx Virtex 5 and Spartan FPGAs with 2GB of RAM for frame storage in addition to a multi-threaded Windows-based application that accepts and displays either an analog or Fire-wire video feed from a microscope and in turn allows the user to target cells by overlaying masks of a variety of user-drawn shapes. The selected cells may then be photobleached by a variety of laser sources including a large-spot or optical galvo directed pinpoint source.

Results:
Researchers find the new system extremely effective for performing cutting-edge cell targeting at more than 50 research facilities.