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Dr. Louis Kamentsky
Louis Kamentsky has a great record of achievement in cytometry. Originating from the world of IBM and character recognition days, he came into the field influenced particularly by Myron Melamed.
He developed the most advanced cell analysis tools in the early 1960’s, publishing a seminal paper in 1963 in Science, (Science 142:1580-1583, 1963
) in which he was able to differentiate cancer cells from normal cells using absorption profiles. He followed this with another key paper in 1965, (Science 150:630-631, 1965) in which he as able to characterize the spectrophotometric properties of cells at a rate exceeding 500 per second.
Louis Kamentsky is thought to be the first person to commercialize a flow cytometer with an inbuilt laser (Cytograph, 1970) and much of his technology eventually was fundamental in Ortho’s huge success in flow cytometry instruments in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. Subsequently, Lou applied his tremendous knowledge of image analysis and automated classification techniques to establish the CompuCyte Corporation, from which developed the first really high content screening device.
Cytometry: A Century of Innovation
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Recollections of the History of Cytometry with Louis Kamentsky
Produced by the CompuCyte Corporation, June 2007
Louis Kamentsky on his early work