Cytometry, a Biomedical Key Discipline
Microscopy is a wellknown example. Microscopes are used as tools e.g. for the magnification of microfilms or during product control while the appropriate staining of particular micromorphological structures as well as the interpretation of histo- and cytopathological slides requires the knowledge of an entire scientific discipline (Histo- & cytopathology). The development of laser microscopes with specific molecular stains has recently opened new disciplinary fields to biochemical morphology and cellular research in general.
Cytometry, in contrast, permits to determine biochemical features of living diseased or healthy cells close to their in-vivo condition. By this feature it is possible to access predictive medicine which provides information on disease development in individual patients. This constitutes an important extension of current statistical disease prognosis evaluation in medicine which is, in general, insufficient for disease course prediction in individual patients or for the development of individualized therapy schemes.
Simultaneous multiparameter measurement of biochemical parameters in single cells of heterogeneous cellular systems represents a potentiator for biochemical information collection, unparalleled by other methodologies. The inherent principle of representative statistical sampling close to disease action, the use of multiparametric molecular stains, permits new biochemical system approaches for the characterization of complex organ and tissue architectures.
The predictive aspects for medicine as well as the instrumental, cell staining and multidimensional result interpretation knowledge constitute jointly the features which will advance cytometry from a tool science to a key discipline in biomedicine.
The cytometric one cell is one biochemical cuvette concept,
overcomes these limitations by combining the advantage of
microscopic single cell observation with the advantage of performing
specific biochemical reactions or assays of specific biomolecules in
intact cells. The multiparametric system cytometry approach will
therefore significantly alter e.g. the strategy of medicine oriented
cell research in many instances.
One of these changes concerns the investigation of in-vivo
cellular heterogeneity by the system cytometry.
As much biochemical information as possible is collected in a maximum of
potentially related but nevertheless different cell populations of
complex cellular systems (blood, bone marrow, transplant biopsies etc).
The enormous amount of information is then efficiently
extracted
by Standardized Multiparameter Data Classification
(SMDC).
This allows the biochemical analysis of unperturbed complex cell systems
close to the in-vivo state. The analysis of the utmost cellular
complexity instead of cellular monosystems constitutes
the central feature of system cytometry.
The successful industrial implementation and dissemination of
instrumentation in combination with the various developments of
single cell structural and
functional
biochemical assays has substantially enlarged but also
altered the body of cytometric knowledge over the years. Advanced
electronic network communication has added a very important
new facette to this synchronized multidisciplinary effort.
The consequences of this is that the cytometric discipline in all
likelihood will not be organized like other biomedical disciplines e.g.
cell biology, biochemistry, internal medicine, zoology, botany etc.
Cytometry consists of a rapidly evolving multisciplinary knowledge
pool, represented and supported by many thousands of scientists worldwide.
This knowledge pool constitutes a virtual entity with
high intellectual and innovative strength. The practical
realization of this scientific discipline will vary according
to local needs e.g. chairs in large research institutions or in biomedical
university focus centers, self standing scientific or routine laboratories
in hospitals or industry as well as research groups within university
departments.
System Cytometry, a New Research Strategy
Homogeneous, synchronized model cell systems are used
in traditional biochemistry to overcome the interpretation problem
of results from cellular assays which are averaging over
many thousands or millions of cells in different functional state.
Such assays are useful for the investigation of discrete cellular functions
like antibody production or cell cycle mechanisms. Model cell systems suffer,
however, from severe inherent limitations when interrelations amongst
different cell populations are to be explored. Concerns about the
representativeness of the results from model cell systems e.g. for
the human organism or about the possibility for introducing artifacts
by cell synchronization procedures are as old as the entire model cell
system approach.
Cytometry, a Partially Virtual Discipline
Cytometry has been a multidisciplinary science from its very
beginning on. The common interests of biologists, hematologists, pathologists
and engineers generated initially the synchronized effort of a small
fraction of scientists in each of the disciplines to set out for the fast
measurements of cellular parameters. The basis for a pulsing new body
of intellectual and experimental knowledge was generated by this effort.
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Last update: Feb.24, 2000