RE: Bench-top analysers, etc.

Hi Zip,

I bought the BD FACSarray instrument before the Accuri and more advanced
Guava's became available (before the Array officially hit the market
itself, really). We've relentlessly hammered it with whole stacks of
cell based assays, and it has performed admirably. All but one or two of
my techs were new to flow coming here, and all of them use the
instrument without any help. Sensitivity for PE label is better than
"regular" instruments, due to the primary excitation being at ~532
rather than 488.

Which gets us to major the downside of this machine: you can't read FITC
at all for lack of suitable excitation. Frankly, this turned out to be a
non-issue, despite the lack of any other instrument initially (we've got
multiple 488nm laser instrument around right now, but they're still used
less than the little 'Array).

The other "problem" as seen by an advanced user might be the lack of
filter exchangeability/fairly restrictive "rigid" software, but this
goes for most small cytometers and you can bypass at least the latter
one by exporting data to FCS, then reanalyse by whatever software you
prefer.

Guy

Guy Hermans 


Guy Hermans 

Principle Scientist 

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Ablynx nv 


Technologiepark 4 

Tel +32 (0)9 262 00 00 

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Cell +32 (0)486 78 85 51 

guy.hermans@ablynx.com 


www.ablynx.com 

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-----Original Message-----
From: Zip [mailto:zipkg@yahoo.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 18:40
To: cyto-inbox
Subject: Bench-top analysers, etc. 

Greetings from sunny Miami, 

     We are considering the purchase of one or more small, basic (!),
simple to use (!!), idiot-proof
(!!!) bench-top flow cytometric analysers here. I am familiar with the
products from eg. Guava and Accuri, but was wondering if there also
might be any alternative potential others which I might have missed out
there. Also, any experience and feed-back from users of such systems
would be appreciated greatly. 

     Still hoping also to start a local informal and social cytometry
group here, if anyone else might be interested in the Miami metropolitan
area. I miss the Boston-based BBG. boo-hoo... 

Regards, 

Huw S. ("Zip) Kruger Gray, Ph.D. 
>>>---> 

Director, Flow Cytometry Core Facility, University of Miami, Medical
School, Cancer Centre.