The present invention achieves rapid identification of pathogens,
bacteria, cancer cells and other abnormal human and animal cells. In one
embodiment, the system of the present invention comprises a first
subsystem that obtains and processes images of specimens of pathogens,
bacteria, and other abnormal cells, and a second subsystem that accepts
the images, isolates the particular features of the image using advanced
image segmentation, and then rapidly and accurately identifies the
pathogens, bacteria and other abnormal cells by using a pattern
recognition process wherein the segmented or isolated features of the
original image are compared to known reference images.