NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE - CANCER.GOV

Contact Information


Primary Contact

Kathy McKinnon
Senior Associate Scientist

Location

Building 41, Room B715
Bethesda, MD 20892

Overview

The NCI Vaccine Branch Flow Cytometry Core is a full-service facility within the Center for Cancer Research that supports over 150 users representing 26 laboratories. The Core Facility provides instrument and software training, technical expertise, assay development, and experimental design for all users. The Core also offers sample preparation protocols and reagent recommendations, including fluorochrome panel setups for each flow cytometer and reagent cross-reactivity among species. The Core Manager provides assistance with data analysis and figure preparation for flow cytometry data presentation in publications. While the core staff are experienced in all areas of flow cytometry, they also have extensive expertise in 20+ color flow cytometry, non-human primate flow cytometry, mouse flow cytometry, and immune monitoring by flow cytometry.

Established Technologies

  • Cell sorting of both infectious (HIV, SIV, HTLV) and non-infectious samples
  • Multi-color immunophenotyping
  • Cell cycle analysis
  • Proliferation analysis (Ki67, PCNA, BrdU, CFSE)
  • Apoptosis measurement (Annexin V, JC1, Active Caspase 3, TUNEL)
  • Intracellular cytokine analysis
  • Stem cell analysis and sorting
  • Calcium flux analysis
  • Bead array analysis of soluble proteins
  • Phosphorylated protein analysis
  • Fluorescent protein analysis and sorting
  • Quantitative flow cytometry
  • Spectral flow cytometry
  • AutoMACS Pro magnetic bead separator

Major Instrumentation

  • 28-color BD FACSymphony A5 – 355nm, 405nm, 488nm, 532nm, and 628nm lasers
  • Cytek Aurora Spectral Analyzer-355nm, 405nm, 488nm, 561nm, and 628nm lasers
  • 12-color Sony MA900 Cell Sorter- 405nm, 488nm, 561nm, and 638 nm lasers
  • 28-color BD FACSymphony S6 Cell Sorter – 355nm, 405nm, 488nm, 532nm, and 628nm lasers
  • Miltenyi autoMACS Pro magnetic bead separator
  • Sony ID7000 Spectral Analyzer – 355nm, 405nm, 488nm, 561nm, and 628nm lasers

User Guidelines

The VB FACS Core Facility is open 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. Access to the facility is controlled by proximity card readers that respond to NIH ID badges. Users are granted access following completion of training on the instruments.

The core facility is staffed from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM Monday-Friday. After-hours telephone support by the Facility Manager is available 7 days/week.

Keywords

AutoMACS Pro magnetic bead separatorFluorescent protein analysis and sortingHIVHTLVIntracellular cytokine analysisMiltenyi autoMACS Pro magnetic bead separatorMulti-color immunophenotypingSIVStem cell analysis and sortingcell sortingflow cytometrynci-coreFACSymphonyCytek Aurora