High-throughput single-cell analysis is a challenging target for implementing advanced biomedical applications. An excellent candidate for this aim is label-free tomographic phase microscopy (TPM). In this paper, some of the methods used to obtain TPM are reviewed, analyzing advantages and disadvantages of each of them. Moreover, an alternative tomographic technique is described for live cells analysis, and future trends of the method are foreseen. In particular, by exploiting random rolling of cells while they are flowing along a microfluidic channel, it is possible to obtain phase-contrast tomography thus obtaining complete retrieval of both 3D-position and orientation of rotating cells. Thus, a priori knowledge of such information is no longer needed. This approach extremely simplifies the optical system avoiding any mechanical/optical scanning of light source. The proof is given for different classes of biosamples, red-blood-cells (RBCs) and diatom algae. Accurate characterization of each type of cells is reported and compared to that obtained by other tomographic techniques.

中文翻译：

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通过数字全息在芯片实验室进行相位对比断层扫描

高通量单细胞分析是实现先进生物医学应用的一个具有挑战性的目标。实现这一目标的一个很好的候选者是无标签断层扫描相位显微镜 (TPM)。本文回顾了一些用于获得 TPM 的方法，分析了每种方法的优缺点。此外，还描述了一种用于活细胞分析的替代断层扫描技术，并预见了该方法的未来趋势。特别是，通过利用细胞沿微流体通道流动时的随机滚动，可以获得相衬断层扫描，从而获得旋转细胞的 3D 位置和方向的完整检索。因此，不再需要此类信息的先验知识。这种方法极大地简化了光学系统，避免了对光源的任何机械/光学扫描。为不同类别的生物样本、红细胞 (RBC) 和硅藻提供了证据。报告了每种类型细胞的准确特征，并与其他断层扫描技术获得的特征进行了比较。