Flow cytometry is a key application when investigating immune responses, with panels becoming larger to allow more information to be obtained from each sample. In addition to the challenges faced when building large panels, there are considerations when trying to implement and standardize across many sites.
The IMMPROVE consortium comprises leading experts in vaccinology across twelve centers in the UK, aiming to identify components of the immune response that serve as predictors of protective immunity and to determine effective strategies for eliciting these specific responses through vaccination. This approach has many challenges due to variations in instrumentation at different sites, differing opinions on relevant cells and markers, and varying levels of experience with flow cytometry. To accommodate the diverse requirements, larger panels are necessary, but they are more complex to operate and standardize.
In this webinar, Oliver Burton will present a standardized platform of flow cytometry panels, enabling data comparison across multiple sites and studies. He will present the IMMPROVE spectral flow cytometry panels, an end-to-end optimized immune phenotyping platform for human vaccinology and immune monitoring consisting of 77 markers and 53 colors, as well as his automated analysis pipeline. He will also cover the main challenges in platform development, including leveraging new dye technology for high-dimensional flow cytometry resolution and ensuring panel reproducibility and robustness across sites, over time, and among user experience levels.
Insights from the IMMPROVE Consortium: Standardized High-Dimensional Flow Cytometry
In this webinar, you will learn:
- The general principles of spectral flow cytometry
- Challenges, pitfalls, and tips to facilitate building large spectral panels
- The impact of reagents on panel design and assay standardization
- How to effectively analyze and interpret the data obtained
- How to overcome challenges with standardizing data across multiple sites
This webinar is recommended for both novices and researchers with some experience in spectral flow cytometry.
Speaker
Oliver Burton
PhD, Senior Scientist,
Cambridge University, Liston Lab
Oliver Burton obtained his PhD at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Anne Cooke, studying the ability of microbial products to modulate autoimmune diabetes. He fell in love with flow cytometry and spent time with Nigel Miller, the head of the flow core facility. He then began post-doctoral studies focused on the etiology and treatment of food allergies, working primarily with mouse models, with Dr Hans Oettgen at Boston Children’s Hospital, Massachusetts, USA. In 2017, he joined Adrian Liston’s lab, in Leuven, Belgium at the time, to develop high-throughput high-parameter flow panels for the analysis of tissue-resident Tregs and brain-resident immune cells. In 2019, the lab moved to the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, England, and in 2023, the lab moved to its present location at the Department of Pathology in the University of Cambridge. In his day-to-day work, Oliver focuses on training people in best practices in flow cytometry, developing new panels and techniques for experiments, and working closely with bioinformaticians to develop new ways of getting meaning out of cytometry data.