Flow Cytometer

Flow Cytometer
Model	Coulter EPICS ALTRA
Sub-category	Biology
Status	Faulty
Consumables	Sheath Solution, Cleaning fluid, sample tubes
Accessories	Unknown
Training requirement	Yes
Training link	Unknown
Owner	LHS/biohackers
Origin	Donated by Imperial College London
Location	Basement, PCB area/Darkroom
Maintainers	tolland

Imperial College donated a Flow Cytometer. The unit is currently sitting on 1.8m X 0.8m = 1.44 square meters of floor space in the PCB area of the basement.

Status: Currently waiting for basement plumbing to complete, before proceeding with fixing the fluid-assembly at the front right of the instrument. It needs a dust cover, or some protection to access the laser cabinet.

There are a number of large external units some of which are for providing power and cooling to the large laser. (I do not anticipate that the largest laser will be tested for some time, so I hope to move these into out-of-the-way storage, under the worktop in the biolab)

There is a good description of how a flow cytometer works here; http://probes.invitrogen.com/resources/education/tutorials/4Intro_Flow/player.html

It was donated as working, but in need of repair. There is quite a lot of damage due to corrosion, and to the sampling area which we are working on.

The machine requires a dust free environment due to it's use of lasers and optics.

I am currently looking to obtain a copy of the service manual.

Educationz

Harvard University extension school course on microfluidics, course notes

http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k41912&pageid=icb.page213804

Caltech course notes on microfluidics http://thesis.library.caltech.edu/4796/3/02_Chapter_2.pdf

Flow cytometry tutorial

This is a AV presentation describing the basics of the technology;

http://probes.invitrogen.com/resources/education/tutorials/4Intro_Flow/player.html

Practical Flow cytometry

This is an online version of the bible of Flow cytometry (Shapiro 2003)

http://www.coulterflow.com/bciflow/practical/book/index.html

Dako - flow cytometry

http://www.dako.com/08065_15dec05_guide_to_flow_cytometry.pdf

Microfluidics Links

Introduction to fluidics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1waCEPpWPI