Microbiology imaging software

The Synbiosis ProtoCol V1.4 colony counting and inhibition zone sizing software is designed to save microbiologists time by automating many routine plate-based image analysis tasks.

The software is built for maximum flexibility and can be used to analyse images of the same or different coloured colonies on pour, spiral or surface-inoculated plates and 3M Petrifilm, as well as measure inhibition zones on single radial immunodiffusion (SRD) plates and around antibiotic disks. The software, based on the Windows platform, has all the useful icons on one screen, so it is quick and simple for microbiologists to navigate and begin their image capture and analysis with minimal training.

The software is Good Laboratory Practice compliant and supports 21CFR Part 11. It features many innovations for measuring zone sizes, including a gantry control system to allow microbiologists to automatically image large SRD plates.

It also measures inhibition zones from the edge of an antibiotic disc, and automatic subtracts disc diameter sizes to provide results as a zone size only. This saves manual calculation time and also permits scientists to perform tests with different antibiotic disc sizes on one plate.

The zone size results are automatically transcribed into Excel and either an antibiotic or vaccine name can be entered into the database, which means it is easy to produce a full, secure audit trail for each specific therapy.