Image-feature extraction for protein crystallization: Integrating image analysis and case-based reasoning

This paper describes issues related to integrating image analysis techniques into case-based reasoning. Although the approach is generic, a high-throughput protein crystallization problem is used as an example. Our solution to the crystallization problem is to store outcomes of experiments as images, extract important image features, and use them to automatically recognize different crystallization outcomes. Subsequently, we use the outcomes of image classification to perform case-based planning of crystallization experiments for new proteins. Knowledge-discovery techniques are used to extract general principles for crystallization. Such principles are applicable to the adaptation phase of case-based reasoning. The motivation for automated image-feature extraction is twofold: (1) the human interpretation/analysis of image content is subjective, and (2) many problem domains require reasoning with large databases of uninterpreted images, In this paper we present the design and implementation of our integrated system, as well as some preliminary experimental results.