Digital holographic deep learning of red blood cells for field-portable, rapid COVID-19 screening

Rapid screening of red blood cells for active infection of COVID-19 is presented using a compact and field-portable, 3D-printed shearing digital holographic microscope. Video holograms of thin blood smears are recorded, individual red blood cells are segmented for feature extraction, then a bi-directional long short-term memory network is used to classify between healthy and COVID positive red blood cells based on their spatiotemporal behavior. Individuals are then classified based on the simple majority of their cells' classifications. The proposed system may be beneficial for under-resourced healthcare systems. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of digital holographic microscopy for rapid screening of COVID-19. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America

Automated summary

This study presents a rapid screening method for COVID-19 infection in red blood cells using a compact, field-portable 3D-printed shearing digital holographic microscope. By analyzing the spatiotemporal behavior of individual red blood cells, a bi-directional long short-term memory network is used to classify between healthy and COVID positive red blood cells. The proposed system may benefit under-resourced healthcare systems.