FlowJo and CellQuest (was RE: OS9+Cellquest)

From: Adrian Smith (A.Smith@centenary.usyd.edu.AU)
Date: Wed Mar 08 2000 - 20:33:48 EST


>OK Flow JO is great ANALYSIS software, for most things....but it still will
>not Acquire data,

I'm not really sure that is the point here. Haven't we been talking
about ANALYSIS?

Most, if not all, the people who have been having problems have
bought new G4 machines for post-acqusition analysis (and other uses).
Those who simply upgraded to OS 9.0 could easily downgrade to OS8.6
when it didn't work - it was those people with machines that only run
OS9.0 that were stuffed (by Apple and by BD)

If you bought one for acquisition then I agree wholeheartedly that
you should consider it an object lesson (esp given *BDs* record (AND
their recommendations) as well as Apple's)

>   allow back gating of populations

Excuse me?


>and is not the easiest
>for "Graphical" Analysis...

That is entirely subjective (and I'm not even sure what you mean by
"graphical" analysis!). As I have said before I find that complete
novices pick up FlowJo MUCH more quickly than CellQuest.


>so the mantra of "dumping" Cellquest and moving
>to FlowJo is over simplistic at best and is only a solution for those who
>never touch the FACS their data comes from in the first place.

Not true either. I touch the flow cytometer while it collects all my
data AND I always use FlowJo for my analysis. No, FlowJo is not a
solution for acquisiton but again I don't think that is what we have
been talking about.  FlowJo has been an excellent solution for us and
we do all our own acqusition (using CellQuest on an older machine
with an older OS - as you said, if it ain't broke...).

Our data is of such a nature that ANY increase in machine speed
directly translates to increased analysis throughput - FlowJo has
allowed us to take advantage of those increases in speed. Analysis
takes MUCH longer the acqusition in our experiments  and acqusition
doesn't require any where near the same computing power.

We were even using FlowJo while the cytometer was still running from
an HP - CellQuest nowhere in the loop!

I think acquisition and analysis are two separate tasks and it makes
sense to use the best tools for each one.

Most people need two computers, and hence two software licenses, anyway...

I don't think I was being "simplistic" in advocating dropping CellQuest :)
( but I should have made it clearer I was talking about ANALYSIS only)

>And it still
>isn't available for the PC platform, so once again, it is not a cure-all.

Neither is CellQuest last time I looked!



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