Ole Didrick Laerum
- Please tell us about a significant event or moment in Cytometry that you experienced, in a lab, at a conference, or at an informal gathering. Humorous anecdotes, historic photos, brochures, papers, etc, are also welcome.
- I was the main organizer of the International Conference of Pulse Cytophotometry at Voss in June 1979, where about 200 experts on flow cytometry were gathered from Europe and the US. For the first time we had a commercial exhibition at this type of conferences, and the day before the meeting started, people came with their equipment and started to install it. One of the technicians was testing a laser and got it focused on the wall in the exhibition room. He was busy and forgot the whole thing for a while. As a result,the laser beam burned a small hole in the wood. The conference site was a hotel from 1890, a big wooden building, and the next day we told to the journalists from several newspapers and the Norwegian broadcasting that these instruments were so potent that the laser had burnt a hole in the wall of the hotel. They were amazed and wrote long articles about this phantastic new and dangerous technique
- What do you feel was your major contribution to the field of Cytometry?
- I started to work with a Phywe flow cytometer as visiting scientist at one of the Max Planck Institutes in Tübingen in Germany, in 1972, and was the first Norwegian to use the technique. We did sequential cell cycle analysis with FCM to find the effects of some growth regulatory peptides in hemopoietic cells cultured in diffusion chambers in mice.This was one of the earliest works on cell cycle effects of growth factors in hemopoietic cells. After returning to Norway and establishing a research group in Bergen from 1974, we did the following: -Monitoring directly the cell cycle effects of cytostatic therapy in acute myeloid leukemia. -Establishing a series of new methods for automated quantitative analysis of the phagocytic function in human leukocytes, including adhesion, internalization and degradation of fluorescent microorganisms (together with CF Bassøe and R. Bjerknes). This was the first time that such methods became available. -Ploidy studies of different malignant tumours in man, including the urinary bladder, ovary and uterine mucosa and gastrointestinal tumours related to prognosis. All these works contributed to the general clinical use of these techniques. - Mapping of preneoplastic and neoplastic changes in the urinary bladder mucosa (together with J. Høstmark and T. Farsund). This was used as guideline for therapy. -Use of ultraspeed flow cytometric analysis and sorting of hemopoietic stem cells from mice and man for studing time regulation exerted by the expression of various clock genes (together with O. Tsinkalovsky)
- What drove you to this achievement?
- 1. Inspiration from Wolfgang Göhde in the earliest days of flow cytometry, when the analyzers became available. 2. Close communication to European and American colleagues at the different conferences on flow cytometry/pulse cytophotometry. 3. Enthusiastic and hardworking coworkers
- Why was it that your team was able to do it? Was it a special skill? Sudden insight?
- Inspiration from the unique possibilities which this technique gave for automated, rapid cell analysis -We bought flow cytometers with high resolution at a very early stage, which enabled studies which had not been done before.
- Was someone else’s work or influence fundamental in driving your work?
- The flow cytometric “world” in the 1970s was a small family where everybody knew each other. Every time we met at conferences or when visiting labs abroad, there was something new and exciting which had a great impact on our work. In addition, there was a close communication between the different research groups in the field.
- How do you think your work impacted the field of Cytometry?
- It may have contributed to the general use of flow cytometry as a technique for studying clinical material, including hemopoietic cells and malignant tumours. -Introduction of flow cytometry to clinical pathology labs. -Application of FCM for studies of phagocyte functions (together with CF Bassøe and R. Bjerknes). -The work with organization of conferences and with ISAC was important for making this type of techniques available to the research world.
- Ole Didrik Laerum
- The Gade Institute, Section of pathology
- Haukeland University Hospital/University of Bergen
- N-5021 Bergen, Norway