Label-free detection of Giardia lamblia cysts in water samples using a field-portable imaging flow cytometer and deep learning

We report a label-free, field-portable, holographic imaging flow cytometer that can automatically detect and count Giardia lamblia cysts in water samples with a throughput of 100 mL/h. Our cytometer has the dimensions of 19×19×16 cm and a laptop computer-connected to it reconstructs the phase and intensity images of the flowing microparticles in the sample at three different wavelengths and classifies them by a trained convolutional neural network, thereby detecting the Giardia cysts in real time. We experimentally demonstrated that our system can detect Giardia contamination in fresh and seawater samples containing as low as <10 cysts/50 mL.