Phase Holographic Imaging PHI AB

To understand and cure the diseases that still plague humanity, medical science needs new tools that gain widespread scientific use by being affordable to all scientists. Close to 20 years ago this, together with the excitement of working with something entirely new, inspired me and a group of engineers to start developing a technology that would allow cell biologists to non-invasively study cells while being cultured inside the incubator. Sweden is the home of PHI, cinnamon buns, ABBA and technology innovations, including the three-point seat belt and mobile phones. But also Torbjörn Caspersson’s cytophotometer, which led to the flow cytometer and eventually HoloMonitor®. Rather surprisingly in hindsight, Caspersson’s and other early cytometers in the 1930s were microscopy based. However, without digital image sensors and computer processing, the microscope was doomed to mainly remain a visual tool for cell biologists, while the flow cytometer developed to become its separate quantitative counterpart.