On behalf of the Program Coordinators and Steering Committee, it is my pleasure to announce that Registration is now open for the 19th annual Great Lakes International Imaging and Flow Cytometry Association (GLIIFCA) meeting.  This year's meeting with be held on September 24-26, 2010 at the Marriott Detroit Renaissance Center, in Detroit MI.  Program details, Registration, and Hotel arrangements can be found online at http://gliifca.org/gliifca19.html

If you have any questions regarding registration, awards, or the meeting in general, please visit our web site at http://gliifca.org or send an email to secretary@gliifca.org
Ryan Duggan
Co-Secretary, GLIIFCA

Rduggan@bsd.chicago.edu

It is with regret that I inform members that Ger van den Engh has resigned from his position as an ISAC Councilor. On behalf of the Council and all members, I offer thanks to Ger for his service to ISAC and his long term support for the advancement of cytometry. I am pleased to announce that Ryan Brinkman from the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver, Canada was unanimously approved by the ISAC Council to serve the reminder of Ger's term, which concludes at CYTO 2012. Dr. Brinkman is an ISAC Scholar and has been an active volunteer for several years. His work on the Flow Cytometry Data Standards Taskforce has been invaluable. His appointment was in accordance with ISAC's procedure for dealing with vacated Councilor positions.

Sincerely,

Paul J. Smith, ISAC President

Our Journal has successfully relaunched under the leadership of Dr. Attila Tarnok, Editor in Chief and Wiley Publishing. 

• The Journal's Impact Factor is at its highest point since 1994
• The  quality of Journal articles have increased as article submission and rejection rates have increased
• Over 210,000 articles were downloaded in 2009, a 30% increase since 2006
• There has been an increase of 24% in citations since 2008
• Outreach efforts to potential growth/emerging areas for the Journal have been successful.  For example, since the India workshops were held in March 2009 there has been an increase of 400% in submissions from India.
• ISAC has initiated email campaigns to solicit manuscripts from key scientists in key regions such as Brazil, India, and East Asia.

Read more. <hyperlink to http://www.isac-net.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=963&Itemid=2> 

ISAC News and Strategic Plan Update - May 2010

BD's biosciences division has released a new flow cytometry system which allows multicolor applications to be conducted with maximum efficiency. The company's new BD LSRFortessa System is an off-the-shelf unit which uses blue, red, violet and UV lasers to detect up to 18 colors simultaneously.  It offers a relatively small bench top footprint and incorporates technologies that reduce excitation losses and improve light collection efficiency, meaning researchers can benefit from high resolutions and sensitivity levels. The system is also designed to be upgradeable with new lasers and offers a number of customization options, allowing laboratories to tailor the unit to their own assay requirements.  See: http://www.bdbiosciences.com/instruments/lsr/index.jsp

 Novel Immunoassay Platform for Evaluating Multiple Analytes with Minimal Sample Volume.  Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News, Apr 15 2010 (Vol. 30, No. 8) Maria Dinkelmann, John M. Casper, and Michael C. Mullenix.

Continuing its commitment to educational programs in the science and practice of quantitative imaging cytometry, the International QIC Centers of Excellence are pleased to announce that the 2010 QIC Symposium will be held on August 10-12 in Boston, Massachusetts, hosted by the International QIC Center at Children's Hospital Boston, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School.  As the attached agenda confirms, the three-day symposium and advanced practical workshops will uphold the Center's commitment to excellence and diversity in scientific information exchange .

Registration is now open at http://www.imagingcytometrycenter.com/BostonAgendaiQIC.htm.  As in previous years, we expect this symposium to be over-subscribed. We advise you to register well in advance to assure space availability.

We are pleased to announce the opening of the first set of flowCAP challenges. The goal of flowCAP is to assess computational approaches for the identification of cell populations of interest in flow cytometry data. This problem is very close to the clustering problem in machine learning.

In response to this need, we are conducting the Flow Cytometry: Critical Assessment of Population Identification Methods (flowCAP) challenge. The first set of flowCAP challenges  provide the means to objectively test approaches for the identification of cell populations of interest in flow cytometry data by comparison to manual analysis by experts using common datasets. Datasets and challenge guidelines are now available at
http://flowcap.flowsite.org.

Join ISAC and CYTO 2010 on Facebook and Linkedin

      
Connect with former, current, and meet new industry colleagues on Facebook and Linkedin. ISAC has created groups for the Society and the International Congress. We hope these groups will help to increase communication and information sharing inside the cytometry industry. All you have to do is search for the International Society for Advancement of Cytometry and CYTO 2010 to get started.

Sysmex America, Inc. has announced that its Sysmex XT-4000 Automated Hematology Analyzer has been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration.  The Sysmex XT-4000 provides 34 parameters, including advanced clinical parameters, IG (Immature Granulocyte) and RET-He (Reticulocyte Hemoglobin Equivalent) and a BodyFluid specific mode.  It utilizes Sysmex's patented fluorescent flow cytometry and advanced cell counting methods.  See: http://www.sysmex.com/us/816.htm

New Experiment Design Features and Interactive Tools Enhance Beckman Coulter`s CoulterFlow.com