| This volume began as a library of protocols, notes, and reprints representing 13 years of collection, adaptation, development, application, and evaluation of flow cytometry methods in the Flow Cytometry Facility of the Medical College of Virginia Campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. Since its inception in 1976, this laboratory, operated as a multi-user facility under the auspices of the Massey Cancer Center, has performed many different types of flow cytometry analyses, including most of those described in this book. |
| Through four generations of flow cytometers, from a Coulter Electronics TPS-1, with serial number 0001, to the instrument currently in use, a Coulter EPICS 753 dual laser system, a steady stream of researchers has been introduced to the exciting world of flow cytometry in this laboratory. These researchers have included students, medical technologists, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty, ranging from basic scientists to pathologists and clinicians trying to interface between research and diagnostic applications. Although these researchers want to understand how a flow cytometer works, they are more interested in the kinds of analyses that can be performed with flow cytometry, the theory behind particular types of analyses, and how their cells should be prepared. Whereas this volume specifically addresses these concerns of basic and clinical researchers, the background and procedures provided here should also constitute a valuable resource to the rapidly proliferating class of clinical flow cytometry laboratories whose primary functions are diagnostic and prognostic, especially in development of new applications. In view of the dramatic increase in the use of flow cytometry in |
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