Summer update

It's been a busy time for us here at the Crick Flow Cytometry Facility. Not only have we been trying to align the services we provide over our Mill Hill and Lincoln's Inn Fields sites but we have also been active in the cytometry community. In addition, we have been preparing for the big move to the Crick which is now planned for early 2016. As you can imagine moving around 80 Research Labs and 14 Science Technology platforms is not a trivial task. However our last visit to the site showed that the space allocated for the Flow Cytometry Facility is almost ready and is looking good - we are excited about the move!

Since we last posted, a number of the Lab managed to attend CYTO 2015, the annual meeting of ISAC, the International Society for the Advancement of Cytometry. This is the place to be to get the latest updates on hardware, software and reagents but more importantly it is a chance to network with colleagues. This year, CYTO was held in Glasgow at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre. There was a good deal of excitement about the new multiparameter analyser from Propel Labs, the Yeti, and Mass Cytometry in the form of the Helios from Fluidigm continues to make progress but it seemed that the theme of the meeting was the use of microfluidics either for sorting or analysis and this may well be an area that we need to expand into in the coming years.

Prior to the meeting, a two-day hands-on course was provided to local students. This was organised by ISAC's  Live Education Delivery Task Force and flowcytometryUK. Around 50 delegates were able to see the latest equipment which was provided by several manufacturers and be able to pick the brains of 14 world-recognised experts in the field.

The opening lecture by Nobel Laureate, Eric Betzig

The pre-Congress course. Crick involvement in the DNA module!

Glasgow University

One of the most important aspects of a meeting like CYTO is that is gives a Forum for discussion and we were involved with the organisation of a workshop looking at how Core Facilities can make sure they are appropriately acknowledged in publications and how they can even take control of their own publication destiny. A similar workshop was also run recently at the IV Core Management meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. The major points that came out of these workshops was that cores of all kinds, not just the Flow Cytometry ones, face similar issues - how can we keep track of publications that result from work done in the Lab, how can we publish the technological work that is done in our facilities and how can we ensure that we are seen not just as a 'service'.

Finally, we recently completed two 'bonding days' for our Labs at Mill Hill and Lincoln's Inn Fields where we managed to get (nearly) everyone together - keep an eye on the Blog for further team photos!

The Crick Flow Cytometry Team

Derek