Cytometry for Life (C4L)

Changing Lives Through Low-Cost Diagnostics

The Cytometry for Life (C4L) program aims to lessen the burden of HIV/AIDS in areas most impacted, through the provision of affordable and accessible tools for CD4 level testing among AIDS patients, with an emphasis on rural or remote communities in resource-constrained regions. Using mature technology, Cytometry for Life’s CD4 T-lymphocyte testing device is designed to be portable, reliable, and battery powered. The C4L diagnostic cytometer costs less than US $5,000, with a goal of a per test cost of 50 US cents.

Why Cytometry for Life?

CD4 testing using flow cytometry techniques is a critical component of the AIDS treatment process in terms of identifying candidates to receive life-saving therapy, as well as on-going monitoring of disease progression. Unfortunately, in areas most impacted by HIV/AIDS, such as the African continent, CD4 testing procedures are often plagued by inconvenient time lags, inconsistent results, high costs, and limited availability in rural areas. The former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis has been a major proponent of the movement to make CD4 testing “portable” and “easy to use” so as to mitigate the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Lewis issued a challenge to experts in the field of cell analysis at the 2006 International Society for Analytical Cytology Congress, held in Quebec, to create a solution to flow cytometers that are “bulky, difficult to use, at about $50,000 each, vastly out of reach of most of the continent” (Nature Medicine 2006;12(10):1107).

The Cytometry for Life (C4L) Program was created in response to this urgent call to action by Stephen Lewis. The innovative design of C4L’s low-cost, portable, battery-operated CD4 testing device grew out of an initial partnership between scientist J. Paul Robinson, (Past-President of the International Society for Analytical Cytology and SVM Professor of Cytomics at Purdue University) and engineer Gary Durack, (president of iCyt Visionary Biosciences, Urbana, Illinois). C4L team members have recently traveled to 6 African countries to identify phase-1 target areas and conduct situation analysis. The team sought to understand current CD4 testing problems in the field, as well as the qualities and characteristics of a CD4 testing program that would be necessary to optimize antiretroviral treatment (ART) roll-out programs.

Download a slideshow or a pdf on the C4L program as presented at the World AIDS congress in Mexico City in August, 2008.

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• J. Paul Robinson PhD, C4L Director
• Bindley Biosciencce Center
• Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories
• 1203 West State Street
• West Lafayette, IN 47907
• Phone: 765-494-0757
• E-mail: jpr@flowcyt.cytometry.purdue.edu
• www.cytometryforlife.org