Over Thanksgiving my husband took me with him on his business trip to London. I had never been overseas before and it was amazing. The trip was for a week, long enough to slip in - you guessed it - a visit to another Flow Core.
Gary Warnes is the Facility Manager for the Flow Cytometry Core Facility. The Core is located within the Institute of Cell & Molecular Science as part of Queen Mary London University. The Blizard Building itself is worthy of comment - the color palette that adds a cheery warmth to grey London days. Gary's first stop on his tour was the inside of his side of the complex, which from the ground floor affords views of the
research benches situated beneath three suspended pods used as meeting rooms. From the first floor we descended down to his lab, consisting of a centralized collection of cytometers in one room. I was sorely appreciative of the convenience of having all instruments in one room, much like Wayne Harris or Linda Stempora's space. The Core collection includes a BD FACSAria with three lasers and aerosol containment, a Coulter EPICS XL, and a four laser BD LSRII.
The Core's website is a valuable collection of methods complete - with data figures!! - and specific protocols for organelle functional assays as well more pedestrian immunophenotyping. You can also use Amazon to see his book chapter in Flow Cytometry Principles and Applications. It would be interesting to write up our Core's methods for DC analysis as a comparison to Gary's.
When Gary had a breather between operator appointments, he took me over to see the latest gadgets ICMS has recently acquired for microscopy. The instrumentation list includes a confocal Zeiss and a just unpacked epifluorescent Nikon with an integrated environmental control chamber, and more details are left to Gary. This is the second Core I knew of that was in some way aligning microscopy and cytometry, the first being Sam Connel's Core up at St. Jude's Childrens Research Hospital.
After wrapping up with the last client, Gary graciously introduced me to his local - The Good Samaritan. Which brings to mind a very nice side-effect of visiting other Cores - stimulating conversations from comparing methods and techniques... for enjoying a pint.
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