MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF YEAST-CELLS USING AN AUTOMATED IMAGE-PROCESSING SYSTEM

In order to control the growth of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae d uring cultivations, a fully-automated sampling and analysing system ha s been developed. Based on the microscopic appearance of cells, a deta iled characterization of yeast suspensions from the bioreactor is avai lable, presenting data of current cell concentrations, distributions o f process-dependent cell structures and parts of cells containing vacu oles. This measuring system combines quantitative and qualitative anal ysis methods in a digital image processing technique, which offers the possibility of on-line estimation of cell development that approximat es real-time. Perturbations within the process are detectable in time and regulative actions can be done without any delay.