Training, Service, and Dissemination
Training:
The training function of the NFCR is one that fosters communication between scientists relating to the development, use, and application of flow cytometry in biomedical research. These are the areas where the Resource has the most experience and where it can best serve the biomedical community:
The Annual Flow Cytometry Applications Course:
Every year a flow cytometry applications course for experienced users is taught. It is co-directed by the NFCR and Verity Software House. The location alternates between Los Alamos, New Mexico (in odd years) and Brunswick, Maine (in even years). The focus of the course is advanced research applications in flow cytometry. The faculty includes nearly a dozen researchers who present lecture and lab classes on topics including quantitative cytometry, cell activation, chromosome analysis, platelets, DNA content, cell tracking, apoptosis, intracellular cytokines, MDR, FISH, multicolor immunophenotyping and compensation, computer analyses and the inner workings of the flow cytometer.
For more information regarding the courses to be held in Albuquerque, NM, please contact Jim Freyer (jfreyerp@unm.edu).
For more information regarding the courses to be held in Brunswick, Maine, please contact Mark Munson (mem@vsh.com) of the Verity Software House.
Postdoctoral Fellows and Students:
The NFCR, or closely related programs, support a number of Postdoctoral Fellows whose research is focused on some aspect of flow cytometry, either instrument development or biological applications. Other Postdoctoral Fellows are supported by other programs but are associated with the NFCR and draw heavily on its staff and facilities to carry out their research.
Graduate training positions offer a number of benefits to the training institution as well as to individual trainees. Via adjunct faculty appointments at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, several of the NFCR staff members can accept graduate students from UNM into the LANL training environment. These students contribute to research programs at the same time as they are trained, and the students often help to cement programs together that cross interdisciplinary boundaries or extend among laboratories of several investigators simultaneously. Graduate students associated with the UNM Biomedical Sciences program also participate in NFCR activities.
Technical Workshops:
These workshops are a means of offering specialized short courses to a midsize audience. Often, these half-day workshops are associated with the International Society for Analytical Cytology conferences.
Seminars and Visiting Scientists:
The seminar program provides the Resource staff with appropriate consultation, advice and information from other experts in flow cytometry and related fields. In addition to the seminar program, the Resource encourages a limited number of short-term visiting scientists at Los Alamos. These scientists come on an individual basis both to teach and to learn and to provide the staff with an invaluable resource of expertise from the scientific community.
Service:
The service function of the NFCR is intended to provide access for biomedical scientists to Resource technology. The NFCR provides adequate space, professional consultation and technical assistance with samples, appropriate instrumentation, data analysis capabilities, and assistance with data interpretation when requested.
The service component of the NFCR consists of five categories of activities:
- analyzing/sorting samples sent to the Resource
- providing characterized samples to external investigators for validation of their instrument operation
- providing facilities for local NIH and DOE supported investigators
- supporting SBIR applicants and awardees /
- providing service to the cytometry community at large
Dissemination:
Dissemination of information about the accomplishments and activities of the Resource and its availability to the scientific community occurs through several different mechanisms:
Scientific publications
- Presentations at scientific meetings
- Conference organization
- Technology transfer
- Patents and licenses
- Tours and visitors
- NFCR web page