Articles Written By Meerambika Mishra

Here we are, at the end of an eventful year 2021. But with the promise of a new year 2022 to come. It has been a long year, filled with ups and downs. It is always good to reflect on the past year as we move to the future.  In Memoriam Sir Isaac Newton wrote “If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” In the past year, we have lost some giants of our field including Zbigniew Darzynkiwicz, who contributed much in the areas of cell cycle analysis and apoptosis. Howard Shapiro, known for…

Mastering foundational concepts are imperative for successfully using any technique or system.  Robert Heinlein introduced the term ‘Grok’  in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land. Ever since then it has made its way into popular culture. To Grok something is to understand it intuitively, fully. As a cytometrist, there are several key concepts that you must grok to be successful in your career. These foundational concepts are the key tools that we use day in and day out to identify and characterize our cells of interest.  Cells Flow cytometry measures biological processes at the whole cell level. To do…

There are 4 major ways to sort cells. The first way can use magnetic beads coupled to antibodies and pass the cells through a magnetic field. The labeled cells will stick, and the unlabeled cells will remain in the supernatant. The second way is to use some sort of mechanical force like a flapper or air stream that separates the target cells from the bulk population. The third way is the recently introduced microfluidics sorter, which uses microfluidics channels to isolate the target cells. The last method, which is the most common––based on Fuwyler’s work––is the electrostatic cell sorter. This…

Compensation is necessary due to the physics of fluorescence. Basically, compensation is the mathematical process of correcting spectral spillover from a fluorochrome into a secondary detector so that it is possible to identify single positive events in the context of a multidimensional panel. Good compensation requires that your controls tightly adhere to three rules. If the controls don’t meet this criteria, it will lead to faulty compensation resulting in false conclusions and poorly reproducible data. Even among flow cytometry veterans, a strong foundation is occasionally in need of a tune-up. And in a topic as complex as flow cytometry, it’s…