Web-Based Tool Helps Identify Parasites

A web-based system has been developed to observe and identify parasites with virtual microscopy on the Internet. This should help laboratory personnel to identify parasites and assess parasite burden throughout the planet.

Identification of parasites by microscopy is the basis for both diagnostics and epidemiological assessment of parasite burden globally. Yet, quality assessment of diagnostic parasitology laboratories is difficult, as delivering identical educational specimens has been impossible.

Swedish and Finish scientists digitized a series of parasite specimens on ordinary glass slides using a new microscope scanner technique. Up to 50,000 images captured at high magnification were digitally stitched together to form a representation of the entire glass slide. The scientists captured image stacks at different focal planes, and developed a web-based viewing system for three-dimensional navigation in the specimens. Examining the samples on the Internet puts only modest requirements on the viewer's computer.

The system was developed by a parasitology team lead by Professor Emeritus Ewert Linder at Karolinska Institutet (Solna, Sweden) together with a medical bioinformatics team lead by Associate Professor Johan Lundin of Folkhälsan Research Center (Helsinki, Finland).

"We believe that this is a possible way of improving the diagnostic standard for parasite caused diseases in low-income countries,” said Professor Linder.

The web-based system to aid diagnosis of parasite-caused diseases, such as amebiasis and malaria, appears in the October 21, 2008 issue of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Related Links:
Karolinska Institutet
Folkhälsan Research Center