How Smart SOD Works

Instrument

Smart SOD is a custom built large-bore flow cytometer originally developed in collaboration with Union Biometrica. This style of flow cytometer can allow organisms ranging from a few microns to 2mm in diameter to flow one-at-a-time through a glass tube where they are processed by the sensor suite. Depending on evaluation by the sensor suite, small puffs of air direct the organisms to different holding chambers including individual wells of plates for further processing.

Sensors

The sensor suite is composed of lasers of varying wavelengths from which a series of parameters are captured including features like absorbance, backscatter, etc. These lasers can provide approximately 8,000 scans per body length allowing for detailed assessment of body profiles. In addition to the lasers, a high speed, high-resolution camera captures images of organisms passing through the flow cell. The combination of lasers and imaging allows for detailed morphological information to be collected on each particle and organism that enters the flow cell.

Machine Learning

This detailed information (for each organism: 48 laser features at ~8,000 scans per millimeter and high resolution images) is fed into machine learning pipelines for identification and classification. Depending on the application, supervised machine learning classifies known organisms or unsupervised algorithms cluster new or novel organisms for further study or evaluation in genomics pipelines.

Results from our Prototype

More specific technical details and selected results from our initial prototype have been published open access in the Biosensors and Bioelectronics Journal: The Smart Soil Organism Detector: An instrument and machine learning pipeline for soil species identification.