Cytometry Workshops

Workshop Report

2nd ASEAN Cytometry Workshop
January 17-21, 2011
The Biopolis, One North
Singapore

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The 2nd ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) was hosted by Dr. Vivek Tanavde of the Bioinformatics Institute and Biopolis Shared Facilities, Agency for Science Technology & Research (A*STAR) with the National University of Singapore from 17th to 21st January, 2011.

Financial support for faculty travel was provided by grants from the International Society for Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC), International Society for Clinical Cytometry (ICCS) and the Bioinformatics Institute, Singapore.

A two day course on basic flow cytometry for students unfamiliar with the technology was held before the main workshop. The basic course was taught by Drs. Michael Ormerod and H. Krishnamurthy. Out of 45 applicants, 31 were selected for wet labs where the students prepared samples and analyzed them on the nine flow cytometers/sorters available for the course. More than 50 students from local institutions were present for the lectures from the podium.

Wet labs for sample preparation and flow cytometric analysis were conducted at the Biopolis Shared Facilities, National University of Singapore and the Becton Dickinson Training Center. The 13 faculty members (11 from abroad) were supported by 12 staff associates and technical staff from the host institutions and several major flow cytometer manufacturers. Instruments from Becton Dickinson, Beckman Coulter, Millipore, Life Technologies and Miltyeni were used for wet labs. Software support was provided by Tree Star (Flow Jo).

Lab modules taught were: 1. Cell Cycle and Proliferation (Krishan, Cram and Hamelik), Apoptosis (Ormerod), Multicolor Phenotype Analysis (Jain and Maciorowski), Stem cell Analysis (Telford, Krishan), CD34 enumeration (Sutherland), Cell sorting (Osborne). Leukemia & Lymphoma (Gujral), Infectious diseases (Pattanpanyasat) and Cell Signaling (Shankey).

Dinner receptions were hosted by Becton and Dickinson, Beckman Coulter, Life Technologies and Miltenyi Biotec. Students were tested against a multi-choice set of question covering the modules taught. Students with the best score in each module were awarded ISAC membership for 2011.

Students were asked to rate the lab modules and lectures as well as to make comments on the workshop. On a scale of poor (1) to outstanding (5), the lectures and labs were rated between very good++ to outstanding with an average score of 3.8.

Out of the 24 respondents, 6 rated the workshop as "exceeded expectations" and 16 indicated that it "met most expectations".

A total of 15 new applications for ISAC membership were collected and submitted to ISAC. Many of the applicants expressed interest in submitting an abstract and attending CYTO 2011 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Several suggestions by the students will be used to further refine the format for our future workshops.

The 3rd ASEAN workshop will be held in Bangkok, Thailand in 2013 hosted by Dr. Kovit Pattanpanyasat.