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The flow lab created its very own group on Facebook where you'll find the latest news about us, information on our instruments and discussions on the up-to-date events in the fantastic world of flow.

Find the University of Chicago Flow Cytometry Core Facility group  and feel free to leave any comments and questions you might have.

GLIIFCA Core Manager Meeting Preview - September 24, 2010

For those who will be at the meeting, I've put up my slides in PDF format here (sorry, I think the link works now) in case you wanted to follow-up with one of the tools we use in the core.  For those who will not be able to attend, feel free to read through to see what types of tools we use at UCFlow to try to do more with less and be as efficient as possible.  Check back here for updates from the Core Manager meeting and the rest of this year's GLIIFCA.

Flow cytometry leads to everything!

The man on the right in this picture is Jeff Schneider.  He used to be a technician here in the flow lab.  Look at him now, playing with his band Darling at the Hideout tonight at 9PM.  Rock on dude!

Flow cytometry leads to everything.

You know what really grinds my gears?

So, I was fixing a clogged DCM pump on the LSRII this morning, which requires the removal of the side panel on the instrument, getting on your hands and knees and digging around in the inner bowels of the beast.  As I was shimmying around, contorting my limbs in all sorts of god-awful positions, I kept crunching pieces of plastic under my feet.  I peaked down, backwards, over my shoulder to see a bunch of pipette tips on the floor...surrounding the trash bin at the foot of the instrument. Are you kidding me?  People, presumedly adding their PI or DAPI at the instrument, are ejecting their used tips in the vicinity of the garbage, and missing >50% of the time.  They obviously can hear the tips crashing into the ground and missing the garbage, but decide to do nothing about this?  I then pan across the room, and I see racks of nearly empty tubes, crumpled kimwipes and a full waste tank.  C'mon people, have a little respect, pick up after yourselves.   Needless to say, my DCM repair turned into a full-on cleaning session; swept, threw out all the tubes, wiped down the bench space, and even got the mop from the janitor's closet and mopped the floors.  So, here we go people, August 27th, 2010 at 10AM, the LSRII area in 037 is clean.  LET'S KEEP IT THAT WAY!

It's GLIIFCA Time!

We're in the dog days of Summer, so that could only mean one thing... GLIIFCA 19 is right around the corner.  The Great Lakes International (because we let the Canadians join us) Imaging and Flow Cytometry Association's 19th annual meeting will be held September 24 - 26, 2010 in Detroit, MI.  This is a great meeting for users of Flow Cytometry and Imaging technologies (including the ImageStream!) that gives you a chance to see how people are using Flow in interesting and novel ways in their research.  It's also ridiculously cheap.  The registration fee is a paltry $80 AND, if you bring a poster, you'll get a $100 travel stipend.  Also, it's close enough to drive,  and the hotel rates are very reasonable as well.  So, there's really no excuse not to go.  However, if you need one more reason why you should go to GLIIFCA this year, it's because the theme for this year's Saturday night party is freaking STAR WARS!!!!   So, click on over to GLIIFCA.org and register yourself today.  If you U of C folks do decide to join us, David will buy you a beer!

Got Sand?

Or should I say, do you need sand, because I have some, well, a bunch of sand in my office!  It has sort of turned into a UCFlow tradition now, but the office pranksters have done it again.  I'm not sure why I was surprised since this happens pretty much every July to me, but I have to admit... they got me good this time.  If you have no clue what I'm talking about let me explain.  Every time I leave the lab for an extended period of time (vacation, meetings, etc...) I come back to find my office 'decorated' with the latest musings of lead prankster, David Leclerc.  Now, these aren't just, "let's put a whoopee cushion on his chair" types of pranks, these take coordination and time, lots of time (I'm sure it all takes place after 5PM ; ).
In prior years, I've come back to find my office wallpapered with post-its, which sounds sort of crazy, but add to that, the fact that every single post-it had a little nonsensical note written on it.  Next was balloons.  My office was filled to about waist height with balloons - luckily they were filled with air, and not water or other types of noxiousness. The next year was aluminum foil.  My office and everything in it was wrapped in foil.  This was pretty extreme in that even the few pennies I had sitting on my shelf were individually wrapped in foil.  Which brings me to this year's vandalism.  As I approached my office on Monday morning, I started to notice a bit of graininess on the floor, still puzzled, I opened my door to find a "tropical paradise."  There was about 3 inches of sand covering the entire floor, a "palm" tree, empty bottles of corona, sand toys, and even a sand sculpture of the Eiffel Tower.
So, I haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to clean this up.  Luckily they were smart enough to put a plastic tarp over my carpet, so that should help.  But, seriously, if you are putting down some patio pavers this summer and need some sand, let me know!

You mean there's other analysis software besides FlowJo???

Even though a vast majority of users at U of C are FlowJo users, it doesn't mean we ONLY use FlowJo.  FlowJo does a really good job with a lot of different flow applications, but there are some things I'd definitely want to change.  So, I'm always playing around with new software, as well as revisiting old standbys:  FCS Express, VenturiOne, Kaluza, Winlist, to name a few.  In addition, there are a bunch of freeware apps that are pretty good as well:  WinMDI, Cyflogic, MFI, ANALYSE, IDLYK, and more being developed frequently.  Recently I had the opportunity to talk with Kelly Rae Chi from The Scientist Magazine, which resulted in an article featured in the most recent edition.  The piece is titled "Let the Data Flow:  Rethink your Data Analysis Tools for Flow Cytometry." It's in Volume 24, Issue 6, Page 63.