Dear All: I completely agree with the views expressed about some of the flow cytometry data published in scientific journals including many top journal that Howard Shapiro mentioned. There are a number of problems that need to be addressed. It is a collective responsibility of those who "use" flow cytometry tools and those who provide the service. Needless to say that for those who are familiar with flow cytometry, it is discouraging to see flow data published in journals without consideration of general rules. Data with no or appropriate controls are published. This leads to the development of misleading concepts. Part of the problem is nowadays flow cytometry is used by almost all biological scientists and most of them get the help of "Core Facilities" to collect their data and to interpret them. There is nothing wrong with that. However, it is generally assumed that the responsibility only lies with the person who is writing the manuscript-usually the senior author of the paper. At least in some cases, people with flow cytometry expertise are very reluctant to point out the deficiencies. Inasmuch as flow cytometry is a scientific discipline and vital for many facets of research, As Howard Shapiro and others pointed out, it deserves full respect. Here are some of my suggestions to this important issue: 1. Although rarely journals like "International Immunology" ask authors to provide information on how the flow cytometry data were collected, generally most journals simply do not ask for any details including Journal of Immunology, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Nature, to name a few. Generally, most reviewers are not familiar with flow cytometry. Solution: At least the journals should ask authors who are not familiar with flow cytometry to consult experts in their own institution like those who run the Flow Cytometry Core Facility. 2. Importantly, reviewers should be encouraged to consult with flow cytometry experts in their own institution to in order to clarify/understand the data before finalizing whether the manuscript should be accepted or revised or rejected. 3. Given the fact that considerable numbers of biological scientists including immunologists have expertise in flow cytometry, it may not be a far fetched idea for all scientific journals to have scientists in their editorial board whose main purpose is to help the reviewers to understand the flow cytometry data and/or clarify any issues related to the collection and presentation of flow data. I sincerely hope that my viewpoints are understood in the right context. Sundararajan Jayaraman, Ph.D. Research Assistant Professor of Surgery Diabetes Research Institute-R134 Miami University School of Medicine 1450 NW 10th Avenue Miami, FL 33136 Telephone: 305-243-3700 Fax: 305-243-4404 > ---------- > From: Howard Shapiro > Sent: Friday, October 19, 2001 11:37 AM > To: Cytometry Mailing List > Subject: When Bad Flow Happens to Good Journals > > > The prestigious journals in cell biology, hematology, immunology, etc. > pick > their peer reviewers for primary expertise in these individual fields, not > for in-depth knowledge of cytometry, flow or otherwise. As cytometry > becomes easier to do (or appears easier to do) fewer of the peer reviewers > possess such in-depth knowledge, having abandoned the field to their > graduate students and postdocs. And the graduate students and postdocs > figure they don't have to know much more than their bosses, since the > folks > at the flow resource will solve most of their problems for them. So, even > if the primary reviewer runs a manuscript by a graduate student or postdoc > who supposedly knows more about cytometry, the likelihood is that > egregious > errors in the cytometry will sail right through if the rest of the science > looks right. As a general rule, reviewers for Cytometry and > Communications > in Clinical Cytometry catch the errors in cytometry; unfortunately, a lot > of the manuscripts that come to these journals have been rejected by more > prestigious journals because there were problems with the rest of the > science. > > It's nice that, within ISAC and the cytometry community, we continue to > address the question of how best to present and display results of > experiments involving cytometry. However, even if we produce all the > white > papers we want on the subject, it is unlikely that they will be read by or > exert influence on editors and reviewers convinced that cytometry is > unimportant enough to be left to the lower echelons. > > The best we can do is educate our collaborators and those who use our > facilities; I'll take my best shot at this in the 4th Edition of Practical > Flow Cytometry, but I don't have a lot of people running samples on my > instruments. Those of you who do may have more influence. > > -Howard > >
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