Image-Activated Cell Sorting (IACS) is a revolutionary technology that realizes real-time image-based sorting of single live cells from heterogeneous populations at an unprecedented rate. The IACS technology integrates high-throughput cell microscopy, focusing, and sorting on a hybrid software-hardware data-management infrastructure, enabling real-time automated operation for data acquisition, data processing, decision making, and actuation. It is capable of identifying how the spatial architecture of molecules within the cell is linked to its physiological function. The IACS technology serves as an integral "Rosetta Stone" (an Egyptian stone that describes the same concept in three languages) for single-cell biology by allowing information flow between population-level analysis (flow cytometry), cell-level analysis (microscopy), and gene-level analysis (sequencing) and is expected to make serendipitous discoveries. At Serendipity Lab, we focus on the enhancement of the IACS technology's capabilities and the exploitation of novel applications that will revolutionize biology and medicine.

The advent of fluorescence-activated cell sorting has advanced our knowledge and exploitation of biological systems in the last decade. Unfortunately, it generally relies on fluorescent labeling for cellular phenotyping, an indirect measure of the molecular landscape in the cell, which has critical limitations. Raman-Activated Cell Sorting (RACS) is a powerful technology that performs real-time sorting of live cells without the need for fluorescent labeling. The technology is highly versatile and holds promise for numerous applications that are previously difficult or undesirable with fluorescence-based technologies, such as stem cell screening, label-free detection of circulating tumor cells, and directed evolution. At Serendipity Lab, we focus on the enhancement of the RACS technology's capabilities and the exploitation of novel applications that will revolutionize biology and medicine.

Recent advances in technology development for cytometry have enabled detailed analysis of single cells. Another avenue of Serendipity Lab is to develop high-throughput, high-content, or high-dimensional technologies for answering unanswered questions, meeting unmet needs in medicine, and a novel class of cytometric applications. Such technologies are based on, but are not limited to, fluorescence microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, microfluidics, and deep learning. Examples of the technologies include a high-throughput gelatin droplet sorter for directed evolution, a label-free molecular fingerprinting flow cytometer, a genetically encoded near-infrared fluorescent calcium indicator, an inertial microfluidic cell sorter, intelligent image de-blurring, microfluidic image cytometry for multiparametric cytotoxicity evaluation, and optical coherence tomography for brain tumor characterization.