RE: Simple flow cytometer construction

Hi,
The second edition of Howard Shapiro's Practical Flow Cytometry has an entire section on
the construction and design of a flow cytometer and you may also gain by perusing some of
the historical data presented in the latest edition of Purdue's Cytometry DVD. If it were
me however I would think this is too extreme for high school students and I would pursue
funding to get a used Scan or Calibur with which I could demonstrate cytometry techniques
to these students. You'd then have a system up and running with which you could reverse
engineer some of the systems design involved in building an instrument as well as
demonstrating technique. People forget that in immunology there was a long period of time
in which cytometry wasn't being used even while the technique was available because it
was too expensive and cumbersome. In 1987 the lab I was in was still counting "bright,
medium, and dim" under an immunofluorescence scope to gather antigen expression data
because the Ortho instrument we had took a day to count a dozen samples. 
A cytometer was an immunofluorescence scope with fluidics and a counter and in 1989,
after Carleton Stewart demonstrated it for us, we bought a FACScan. The point is you can
get a lot of systems understanding from the history alone.
Gene
Gene Pizzo, M.S
Manager, Flow Cytometry Facility
UCONN Health
Farmington, Ct. 06030
860 679-7567
http://flowcytometry.uchc.edu <http://flowcytometry.uchc.edu/> 

________________________________

From: Patricia Lovelace [mailto:patricia.lovelace@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Wed 7/9/2008 18:40
To: cyto-inbox
Subject: Simple flow cytometer construction



Hello flowers,

A friend who left the world of cytometry to become a
high school teacher is asking if there is a resource
he could look into to give ideas about constructing a
simple working flow cytometer from readily available
items. He is looking into incorporating such a project
into his science lesson plans. Does anyone out there
have any ideas of where he could look for information?


Can it be done?

Patty Lovelace
Manager, Flow Cytometry
Stanford University
Stem Cell Institute
1050A Arastradero Rd.
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1334
650-723-2751