Flow cytometry is a laboratory method that allows the simultaneous measurement of multiple physical characteristics of individual cells.
A flow cytometer is used to isolate and fluorescently label blood cells based on molecules of interest associated with each cell. Next, the instrument analyzes and stores information about the cells based on the amount of light scatter and the fluorescent light that is emitted.
Flow cytometry has many applications including:
- Immunophenotyping
- HIV disease assessment
- Transplant cellular distribution determination and CD3 suppression
- Leukemia/lymphoma diagnosis, staging, and minimal residual disease testing
- CD34 quantitation/Stem cell quantitation
- Fetal hemoglobin detection on red blood cells (RBCs)
- DNA ploidy determination
- Research, bacterial identification, population filtering, etc.
This course will focus on leukemia/lymphoma assessment and analysis.