Moving on..

As the year comes to a close, so does my additions to the Garvan Flow Cytometry Blogger and Garvan Flow Twitter feed (twitter.com/garvanflow)

The new year brings exciting changes and interesting times, and in light of this I have decided to centralise my web content via a new Blogger simply called Chris Brownlee which can be found at http://tiny.cc/oezjo or below

Thank you all for reading and I look forward to continue spreading the work we do via the following means

words via Blogger: 

http://www.blogger.com/profile12158037879752405544

posts via Twitter

http://twitter.com/#!/UNSWFlow

and photos via Instagram: 

chrisbrownlee

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas a Happy and productive New Year!

Best wishes,

Chris

BD FACS Jazz™ Install

New gear and the New year..

So, its been a while since I added anything to this blog and thought it about time to fill you all in on the facility changes, my new job and the continuing awesomeness of the MLC Community Foundation Flow Cytometry Facility at the Garvan Institute

First up, the new guy. We were fortunate enough to have one exceptional applicant in our latest round of offers looking for our newest Flow Cytometrist in the community, Mr David Snowden. David joined us earlier this year from UTS where completed his degree in Forensic Science. With all aims to continue studying, and being accepted into a Masters of Biomedical Engineering, David saw the light, put the Masters on hold, and focused on the job at hand and completely immerse himself in the Flow world. In the last few months David has excelled in his performance as an operator and is showing true signs of commitment to the field and we are super lucky to have him at the Garvan, and in the industry as a whole. Thanks for everything mate and all the best in the years to come. Special thanks to Nikki for doing such a smashing job on not only keeping up with the huge number of bookings and sorts we do every week, but to find the time to train, support and teach David. I definitely could not have done the last 2 years with out you..this post is starting to sound suspiciously like a farewell..

Secondly, the new gear. BD FACS Jazz™. Brent, UC Flow and pretty much everyone that has worked on one of these little bad boys was right..we LOVE it!! Amazing little Flow Cytometer and perhaps the best thing on the market at the moment. We are blown away by its size, accuracy, modularity, design, software, speed and purity, its a screamer! 2 way sorting off 8 parameters at its absolute best, here are some pics of the install to keep you up to speed should you ever be fortunate enough to install one in  your lab.

Crate arrives, out come the crowbars

The BD FACS Jazz™

The trolley of accessories! Christmas came early!

2 men easily lift it on the bench

Approved and in place

Organising a table for the electronic components

FSC, SSC, 4 off the blue and 2 off the red

640nm comes installed and mounted on an angle for polarisation

Computers hookup

Pressure is digitally regulated, likewise sample offset is linked to sheath pressure

488nm is mounted, practically aligned by itself. 

Brent - the machining and design of this is incredible as usual - thanks so much!

New BD service engineer inspects the optics

Computers are hooked, software is launched

A very familiar nozzle assembly starts to take shape

Front view of instrument

Digitally processed images of the familiar Influx windows

488nm and 640nm hit the scatter bar

Influx and Jazz side by side in the lab

The workstation - cosy!

Red and blue tweaking

8 peak Rainbows on the R660 and R780 channels on BD FACS Jazz™

8 peak Rainbows on the R660 and R780 channels on BD Influx™

There you have it, installed and ready to go.

We 2-way sorted the second day post install and we are most impressed. I had the entire side panel off and was in looking at the electronics, super compact! I discovered that there may be some room to move on modifications with this instrument, after all.. it is an Influx right?

Thanks so much BD, Cytopeia, Brent, Ger, all the team in Seattle, all the guys in San Jose, Darren, Adam, Christine, Marlene, Andrew, all the team and most importantly Sladjan for always getting us up an running and most of all thanks to the Garvan Board of Directors for funding us! John and Cherry, you are truly amazing. I have not once received a 'no' from either of you and I can't thank you enough for that.

I am signing off the garvanflow blogspot and twitter feed and will commence again under a new banner when I take up my new position as Flow Cytometry Scientist at The Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre of University of New South Wales on January 3rd. David will keep up the posts and keep you all informed of the upgrades, changes and happenings here in the MLC Flow Cytometry Facility at the Garvan Institute.

Finally, I would like to welcome Mr Robert Salomon and wish him all the best in his new role as Manager, Flow Cytometry. Congrats mate and all the best for the year ahead

Until next time, yours truly

Chris Brownlee

BDInflux™ is up and running

Its been 7 weeks since I got back from Cytopeia and I have done little other than run Influx since I got back, the hours spent on the instrument are already too many to count and its paying off in unimaginable ways. We got over 80% efficiency in single cell sorting last week, one cell per well, with 3 from 16 cells coming up with positive bands after PCR. On repeat with the next 16 wells a further 4 came up positive. An impressive result from a sort that was set up after 5 hours battling a failed sheath pressure transducer on FACSAriaIIu only to bail once we realised the plate wasn't able to respond in the Y-direction (later to find the serial port had not been plugged back in after a sample agitation motor was replaced - but thats another story). So, 5 hours down, almost 12 hours in the day with half an hour lunch, the Influx was tackled head on with a 4 colour, 4 laser sort and did it ever shine. We had some problems with drop charge contacts and tracked the problem down using scope probes, multimeters, plate voltage read outs, and after replacing the contacts on the shoe behind the nozzle assembly a second time (this is why it was overlooked - twice was totally unexpected) we have now got some seriously reliable side streams. What I have benefited from most here is the knowledge of changing sort driver racks, trouble shooting over the phone with Brent, learning about software, getting the builds installed and updated, replacing high voltage boards etc. It has been a thorough learning experience and I can now say the setups are taking me an hour, the experiments are taking an hour to set up and the sort button is ready to hit after 2 hours, 11 colour panels, 6 way sorting. Sweet. Its been nothing less than epic but feel we are well on the way to some amazing sorts in the near future, first up being cell cycle sorting and microparticles. Also, if anyone has ideas about esophageal cell markers I would be most interested.

So thats me for April, will keep you updated as things keep progressing. Thanks BD for the opportunity to talk in Adelaide, I look forward to the next one.

©

inFlux Training at Cytopeia

I just wanted to post to keep things consistent with our installation of the 7-laser inFlux at Garvan as I have just completed a weeks training with Brent from Cytopeia BD in Seattle and it has been nothing short of amazing and absolutely invaluable.

The week consisted of laser installation, alignment, optimisations, changes, modifications, new technology, advancements to current equipment, systems and so much more. I know feel closer with my instrument, ready to use it for everything it was designed for and have the confidence to take it to the levels of research that are yet to be defined. The inFlux truly is that instrument. In true Ger style, nothing is impossible.

It was an amazing week. We enjoyed lunch with Andrew at the cuban sandwich bar, a beautiful dinner with Brent, Ger and his wife Barb (thank you both so much). Day trips, home cooked meals, family, friends and science. What ever could be better! I have been blessed and truly spoiled by the wonderful hospitality, incredibly intelligent people I have met, all who are innovative, creative, wonderful and fun.

Thank you to all at Cytopeia. Thank you to BD for giving me this opportunity and most of all, thank you Brent for being a fantastic host, I am looking forward to hanging out down under when your next in town.

I hope these messages help users understand the outcomes of investing in BD in particular the inFlux technology, its an amazing time in research and when you are fortunate enough to purchase equipment like this you truly are getting so much more than just an instrument. My goal is to share these experiences with users in order to create interest, help the companies grow and together, expand and develop what I believe to be the future of scientific research in medical advancements for all humans and the greater good of flow cytometry and even science as a whole.

Best wishes,
Chris

Influx Training

Friday 00:01am

Influx Training completes today, its been a fantastic first week of  2011 back at work. Darren Ellemore has been a fantastic support, an abundance of knowledge and a great trainer, his attention to detail and meticulous procedures help significantly when getting used to this instrument. Overall, the week has been very enjoyable and we have learned alot. Tomorrow is our last day but we feel the support will always continue.

I feel I should comment on thoughts about the instrument, and I don't want to repeat myself at all so I will just say, not only has this instrument given us the ability to get through more samples from users and opened up an entirely new spectrum of experiments but it's also given us a clearer knowledge and fundamental understanding about flow cytometry. Aside from its open architecture that may deter some core operators, its by far the cleanest, easiest, simple yet complex instrument in our fleet.

Darren and BD, Thank you!

Chris