Spectral imaging of biological samples

Abstract

The invention features a method including: (i) providing spectrally resolved information about light coming from different spatial locations in a sample comprising deep tissue in response to an illumination of the sample, wherein the light includes contributions from different components in the sample; (ii) decomposing the spectrally resolved information for each of at least some of the different spatial locations into contributions from spectral estimates associated with at least some of the components in the sample; and (iii) constructing a deep tissue image of the sample based on the decomposition to preferentially show a selected one of the components.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An apparatus comprising:
 a sample holder configured to support a deep tissue sample;   an illumination source to illuminate the sample;   a detector positioned to detect light from the sample; and   an electronic processor coupled to the detector, wherein the electronic processor is configured to: (i) provide spectrally resolved information about light coming from different spatial locations of a sample, wherein the light includes contributions from different components in the sample; (ii) decompose at least some of the spectrally resolved information for each of at least some of the different spatial locations into contributions from spectral estimates associated with at least some of the components in the sample; and (iii) construct a deep tissue image of the sample based on the decomposition to preferentially show a selected one of the components, wherein the processor determines at least a first one of the spectral estimates for a first one of the components from at least part of the spectrally resolved information using an unsupervised classification technique.