DYNAMIC CELL IMAGING™ Resources
An ongoing educational resource from CellTivity Scientific. Explore what DYNAMIC CELL IMAGING™ (DCI) is, how it works, what it reveals in freshly excised tissue, and the clinical images, studies and presentations behind it.
What is DYNAMIC CELL IMAGING™?
DYNAMIC CELL IMAGING™ (DCI) is CellTivity Scientific’s proprietary imaging technology for assessing freshly excised tissue at the point of care. Instead of showing only the shape of cells, DCI captures the residual microscopic movement inside living cells, a signature of intracellular and metabolic activity, and displays it as a color “heat map.”
Highly active cells stand out from the surrounding normal tissue, giving proceduralists a real-time view of what they have sampled. Because DCI requires no cutting or staining, the biopsy is left unchanged for final pathology and next-generation sequencing (NGS). DCI powers the Van Gogh™ system.
Intended use: An FDA Class I in-vitro diagnostic medical device.
How DCI works and what it visualizes
Four steps, from a fresh biopsy to an easy-to-interpret map of cellular activity, in about 102 seconds on average.
Image the fresh biopsy
A specialized phase-contrast microscope uses an advanced form of Michelson interferometry to image the freshly excised sample as it is, with no cutting or staining.
Detect intracellular activity
DCI captures the residual microscopic movements inside living cells, a signal of metabolic activity, up to 150 µm below the tissue surface.
Render a metabolic heat map
Activity is overlaid on cell shape and size as a color heat map, making highly active cells distinct from normal alveolar-parenchymal tissue.
Interpret and preserve
Proceduralists confirm Lesion in Tool and assess adequacy. Images can be viewed in DCI or HistoView, with virtual slices, and the sample goes on intact to pathology.
Where DCI fits in medical imaging
Metabolic activity already drives medical decisions every day. PET scans image it across the whole body, and since Otto Warburg’s work in the 1920s we have known that cancer cells reprogram their metabolism to support uncontrolled growth. Until now, tissue-based assessment could not see that activity at the cellular level. DCI works like a tissue-based PET scan of the biopsy itself.
Clinical imaging examples
DCI heat maps from real fine-needle aspiration, lymph node and tissue biopsies, showing metabolic activity at the micron level. Each example shows the DCI heat map (left) alongside the HistoView rendering of the same sample (right).
Results with DCI
Results reported with DYNAMIC CELL IMAGING™ on the Van Gogh™ system. The 2026 ROPE pilot study also reported 88% patient-level concordance using DCI.
Concordance with final path
Average time for results
Of sample is usable by pathology
Publications, studies & supporting resources
Peer-reviewed publications, conference posters and presentations on DYNAMIC CELL IMAGING™ and the dynamic full-field optical coherence technology behind it.
Publications & posters
All publications
Videos & presentations
All videos
Van Gogh: Empowering Bronchoscopy with Lesion in Tool Insight
Key terms
A short glossary of the scientific and clinical concepts behind DCI.
DYNAMIC CELL IMAGING™ (DCI)
CellTivity Scientific’s proprietary technology that captures intracellular movement in freshly excised tissue and displays it as a metabolic heat map, overlaid on cellular morphology.
Heat map
The color-coded DCI image. Cells with higher metabolic activity appear brighter, so highly active cells stand out from normal tissue.
HistoView
An alternate viewing mode that renders the same Van Gogh™ capture in a format resembling conventionally stained histology, so findings can be read alongside the DCI heat map.
Virtual slices
Optical sections created digitally from the same capture, letting reviewers see up to 150 µm into the sample without physically cutting it.
Lesion in Tool (LiT)
Confirmation, during the procedure, that the biopsy tool has sampled the target lesion.
Biopsy adequacy
Whether a sample contains enough tissue for pathology and molecular testing such as next-generation sequencing (NGS).
ROSE
Rapid On-Site Evaluation: a cytology assessment performed during the procedure to judge whether a sample is adequate.
ROPE
Proceduralist-directed Rapid On-Site Pathologic Evaluation: on-site assessment performed by the proceduralist using DCI.
Warburg effect
Otto Warburg’s 1920s observation that cancer cells rely on glycolysis for energy, an early sign that cancer reprograms cellular metabolism.
D-FF-OCT
Dynamic full-field optical coherence tomography: the label-free, interferometric imaging approach studied in the published DCI literature.
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