Flow cytometry is a laser based, biophysical technology employed in cell counting, sorting, biomarker detection and protein engineering, by suspending cells in a stream of fluid and passing them by an electronic detection apparatus. It allows simultaneous multiparametric analysis of the physical and/or chemical characteristics of up to thousands of particles per second.
Flow cytometry is routinely used in the diagnosis of health disorders, especially blood cancers, but has many other applications in basic research, clinical practice and clinical trials. A common variation is to physically sort particles based on their properties, so as to purify populations of interest.
Read more about Flow Cytometry: History, Principle, Flow Cytometers, Fluorescence-activated Cell Sorting (FACS), Measurable Parameters, Applications
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“For as the interposition of a rivulet, however small, will occasion the line of the phalanx to fluctuate, so any trifling disagreement will be the cause of seditions; but they will not so soon flow from anything else as from the disagreement between virtue and vice, and next to that between poverty and riches.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)