The European Cytometry Network webpage

The webpage of the recently created European Cytometry Network (for further info click here) has been in beta testing already for several months. This may be a very useful and attractive platform created as a social network for the easy exchange of ideas and information between European scientists interested on cytometry. There's a special group exclusively dedicated to plant flow cytometry, which has already 15 members from several areas of plant sciences. So, it may be another web platform (together with the forum) for the discussion of general topics in plant flow cytometry as well as the place to pose any question or doubt related with the cytometric applications in plant sciences.

As the network works as invitation only, in case you are interested in joining us, please just send me an e-mail that I will promptly reply to you.

Make a good profit of it... it was created for you.

Flow Cytometry Blog

While surfing the net for some information about FCM courses I found this blog (link provided bellow) that lists some of the courses that will be lectured this year.


There are not Plant FCM-specific courses listed, but the basis of FCM is the same for all the fields of biology, so if you are interested in learning more about FCM, you should try some of the courses listed in that page, some are hands-on so you will get a lot of practical knowledge as well.

http://www.squidoo.com/flowcytometrycourses

Cheers

European Cytometry Network Meeting report

The EMBL Flow Cytometry Core Facility has just posted the report of First European Cytometry Network Meeting (28-29th February 2008) that I've been talking you about recently on the blog. It is a very interesting reading on the expectations of the participants of the meeting. It also provides a current state of the community.

Download the report

The main developers of the network, Andy Ridell and Alexis Gonzalez, are still open to your feedback, so you can get access to the survey that was made in here. After filling it you can send it to:
Flow Cytometry Core Facility
EMBL Meyerhofstr. 1,
Heidelberg D-69117
Germany

Enjoy your reading! By the way in the picture you can have an idea of the countries represented in the European Network Cytometry Meeting.

Late-breaking submissions on ISAC 2008 congress

There are still 6 days to submit an abstract to present a poster in the next ISAC Congress in Budapest (17th to 21st of May). The organization opened the late-breaking submissions until the next 9th of April, so this is the last chance to bring some of your work to the most important congress on cytometry.

I remember that this is the first time that plant flow cytometry is highly represented in a ISAC Congress. There will be a tutorial and two workshops totally dedicated to this important, but still minority field of flow cytometry.

Please read this older post of the blog for further details concerning the congress and especially the plant sciences sections.

And Budapest is also very beautiful!

Freeware FCM software

Hello, I'm leaving the link for two freeware softwares for FCM data analysis, that are probably well known for the most of you (or maybe not):

WinMDI: http://en.bio-soft.net/other/WinMDI.html

WinMDI is a Windows application that reads most FCS 2.0 compliant files known from most cytometer manufacturers (in the year 2000); this is the latest version (2.9) developed by John Trotter.

and

Cylchred: http://en.bio-soft.net/other/Cylchred.html

Cylchred is a cell cycle analysis software, that works with histograms in FCS single parameter binary format with up to 1024 channels. So you may want to use WinMDI first to obtain this histograms. The latest version is 1.02, and was developed at the university of Cardiff.

Happy data analysis!

The European Cytometry Network Meeting - 2.0 Cytometry

As announced in here, last week, the European Cytometry Network meeting occurred in Heidelberg (indeed, a very nice city in Germany), and what a nice meeting it was. The hosts, Andy Riddell and Alexis Gonzalez, were excellent, as well as most of the conferences. We were also quite happy with the overall feedback on the talk that we gave (you can download it here: Plant Flow Cytometry - Heidelberg) and with the nice contacts that were made. But enough of bla, bla, and let's have a small summary of the main ideas of the meeting.

Andy and Alexis presented us with their idea of a possible European Cytometry Network meeting that would have the simple purpose of helping cytometry researchers and related scientists to get closer to each other. For that, besides other things, a proposal for creating a website 2.0 was made. For those that are not familiar with these websites, they work similarly to Myspace, Windows Live Spaces or Facebook, where each registered user can easily connect to other users, share documents, links, interests and information, enabling a straightforward communication with other members of the online community. And all these things are usually very easy to do, even for less experiences users. It is a very interesting idea and they have already designed some interesting and appealing website, that is only in need of an appropriate server.

Of course, a physical structure for the network is in discussion for the future, but more importantly the meeting intended to create some brainstorming of people's ideas and interests on such a network. So, Andy and Alexis are eager to know what are your ideas for such a network and you can contact them at the EMBL Flow Cytometry Core Facility webpage. For sure it is not intended to compete with ISAC and National Cytometry Societies, but it is rather a congregation of information that could help when requesting for funds and that could ease the contacts at European level.

We will keep you updated on the advances of the Network.

Annals of Botany - Plant Genome Horizons - Forthcoming Special Issue

The Annals of Botany, one of the leading journals in plant genome publications, is preparing another special issue, entitled "Plant Genome Horizons". This special issue will contain some of the works that were presented in the occasion of the conference with the same name (Kew, 16 and 17th of April 2007) that marked Prof. Mike Bennett's retirement and celebrated his scientific career.

From the Annals of Botany future papers here follows some of the articles that will be included in this forthcoming issue. Please note that some of them are already available online via the AoBPreview

A Century of B Chromosomes in Plants ? So What?
Jones RN, Viegas W, Houben A

Dissecting Meiosis of Rye using Translational Proteomics
Phillips D, Mikhailova EI, Timofejeva L, Mitchell JL, Osina O, Sosnikhina SP, Jones RN, Jenkins G

Cytochemistry and C-values: The Less-well Known World of Nuclear DNA Amounts
Greilhuber J

Detailed Dissection of the Chromosomal Region Containing the Ph1 Locus in Wheat Triticum aestivum: With Deletion Mutants and Expression Profiling
Al-Kaff N, Knight E, Bertin I, Foote T, Hart N, Griffiths S, Moore G

Biosystematics and Conservation: A Case Study with Two Enigmatic and Uncommon Species of Crassula from New Zealand
De Lange PJ, Heenan PB, Keeling DJ, Murray BG, Smissen R, Sykes WR

Anthocyanin Inhibits Propidium Iodide DNA Fluorescence in Euphorbia pulcherrima: Implications for Genome Size Variation and Flow Cytometry
Bennett MD, Price HJ, Johnston, JS

Review. Genome Size Scaling through Phenotype Space
Knight CA, Beaulieu JM

The Ups and Downs of Genome Size Evolution in Polyploid Species of Nicotiana (Solanaceae)
Leitch IJ, Hanson L, Lim KY, Kovarik A, Chase MW, Clarkson JJ, Leitch AR

Review: Allopolyploidization Accommodated Genomic Sequence Changes in Triticale
Ma X-F, Gustafson JP

When Genomes Collide: Aberrant Seed Development Following Maize Interploidy Crosses
Pennington PD, Costa LM, Gutierrez-Marcos JF, Greenland AJ, Dickinson HG

Development of a Genomic Microsatellite Library in Perennial Ryegrass (Lolium perenne) and its Use in Trait Mapping
King J, Thorogood D, Edwards KJ, Armstead IP, Roberts L, Skøt K, Hanley Z, King IP

Evolution of rDNA in Nicotiana Allopolyploids: A Potential Link between rDNA Homogenization and Epigenetics
Kovarik A, Dadejova M, Lim YK, Chase MW, Clarkson JJ, Knapp S, Leitch AR

We look forward for this Special Issue of AoB as the manuscripts that will be included seem very promising.

An update on the European Cytometry Network Meeting

As posted below, with the aim to create a network of European Cytometrists, next 28th and 29th of February a meeting will be held in Heidelberg, Germany. Now, there are more details concerning the meeting, particularly, the preliminary programme and the registration procedure (by the way, the deadline for registration was extended until the 3rd of February). Head to the meeting webpage at the EMBL facility for this and more information.

New year, new life

Dear colleagues,

This new year brought me an almost new life, as I am since last week connected with the Department of Botany of the Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic) and with the Laboratory of Flow Cytometry of the Institute of Botany in Pruhonice, where I will continue my studies (Post-Doc). I left many nice friends and colleagues in the Department of Biology of the University of Aveiro (Portugal) but it was time to move on, and the Czech Republic, especially the group of Jan Suda, is the best place to progress with my scientific career.

I am really excited with this new phase, but I am still adapting to the nice Czech culture, especially to its difficult language and cold temperatures, and to different flow cytometers.

I will try to keep the blog updated, and new ideas for it are welcome. Please post them in the comments to this post.

The best wishes for 2008.

João Loureiro

European Cytometry Network meeting

Last October during the DGfZ meeting, the Flow Cytometry Core Laboratory at EMBL Heidelberg has proposed to form an European network of Cytometrists with the aim of close co-operation between different cytometry Societies, Organisations and Laboratories within Europe. More specifically the goals of these network will focus on education, on the promotion of cytometry techniques and on the support of local and regional meetings. You can have a look at the poster that was presented in the DGfZ meeting in here.

For discussing such a network the FCC Laboratory is organizing a meeting to take place at EMBL Heidelberg, Germany on the 28th and 29th of February 2008. Please head to their webpage for more details.

We have just been invited by Andy Riddell to present a talk about plant flow cytometry in the meeting, which is quite an honour for us. As soon as we have more details we will give further news in the blog and forum.

A special acknowledgement to Andy Riddell for all his efforts.

New flow cytometry website

The Flow Cytometry Core Facility of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg has just launched a new interesting website with many downloadable resources, such as software, hardware designs, teaching tutorials and how-tos and educational resources (e.g., video tutorials).

It is certainly worth a look and as the developers of the website intend to regularly update it with new information and resources, one should return to read the latest contents.