AFCG 2009
Symposium Speakers
Dr Ian Frazer
Director of the Diamantina Institute of Cancer Immunology and Metabolic Medicine
Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Australia
Presentation title: Opportunities and Challenges for Biomedical Research in Australia
Dr Frazer was trained as a renal physician and clinical immunologist in Edinburgh, Scotland before emigrating in 1981 to Melbourne, Australia to continue his clinical training and to pursue studies in viral immunology and autoimmunity at the Walter and Eliza Hall institute of Medical Research with Prof Ian Mackay. In 1985 he moved to Brisbane to take up a teaching post with the University of Queensland, and he now holds a personal chair as head of the Diamantina Institute. This institute employs over 200 researchers and trains over 30 postgraduate students. Dr Frazer’s current research interests include immunoregulation and immunotherapeutic vaccines, for which he holds research funding from several Australian and US funding bodies. Dr Frazer teaches immunology to undergraduate and graduate students of the University. He is president of the Cancer Council Australia and is on the Scientific Advisory Council of IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer). He has sat on various committees of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia continuously over the last 15 years. He was chosen as the 2006 Queenslander of the Year and the 2006 Australian of the Year.
Prof Brent Wood
Director, Hematopathology Laboratory
University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Presentation title: Minimal residual disease detection acute lymphoblastic leukemia
Brent Wood obtained his MD and PhD from Loma Linda University followed by a residency in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at the University of Washington in Seattle. After a fellowship in Hematopathology at the University of Washington, Dr. Wood accepted a faculty position in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of Washington where he is currently Professor and Director of the Hematopathology Laboratory. His responsibilities include extensive clinical service work and teaching Hematopathology to medical technology students, medical students, residents and fellows. Flow cytometry is an area of particular interest for Dr. Wood and he is responsible for implementing the first use of 9 and 10 color flow cytometry in the clinical laboratory and exploiting its potential for the identification of minimal residual disease in acute lymphoid and myeloid leukemia. His laboratory serves as one of two national reference laboratories for the identification of minimal residual disease in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia for the Children’s Oncology Group and is involved in similar protocols with the Southwest Oncology Group. Dr. Wood lectures both nationally and internationally on clinical applications of flow cytometry and is Vice President of the Clinical Cytometry Society
Dr Alberto Orfao
Director, National Bank of DNA, Cytometry Service, Associate Professor of Immunology of USAL
Dr. Orfao was born on 15 July 1960. He received his M.D. Degree at both the University of Salamanca, Spain (1984) and the Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal (1985) and obtained the Ph.D. Degree at the University of Salamanca in 1987. He is currently Professor of Immunology and the Director of the General Cytometry Service at the University of Salamanca, as well as a Principal Investigator at the Cancer Research Center of Salamanca. He leads the Spanish National DNA Bank since its creation in 2004. His main research interest is in translational medicine, mainly focused on hematological malignancies and the relationship between immune system and cancer. At present he has published more than 400 scientific papers and 20 patents.
Dr Zbigniew Darzynkiewicz
Director of the Brander Cancer Research Institute, Professor of Medicine and Pathology
New York Medical College, USA
Presentation title:
1. Cytometric Assessment of DNA Damage Response by Cytometry
2. Cytometry of Apoptosis
3. Beyond Flow: Image Assisted Cytometry
Dr. Darzynkiewicz was the Member of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, New York, N.Y. and the Professor of Cell Biology and Genetics at Cornell University Medical School. Dr. Darzynkiewicz received his M.D. (with the highest honors) and his Ph.D. degrees from the Medical School of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland and completed his post-graduate studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo and at the Medical Nobel Institute of Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
Dr. Darzynkiewicz's research concentrates on cell biology with particular focus on cancer cell growth and the regulatory mechanisms associated with cell proliferation, apoptosis and sensitivity to anti-tumor drugs. He developed several analytical techniques to analyze metabolic parameters related to cell cycle kinetics, prognosis of tumor progression and apoptosis that have world-wide application. He is the past President of the Cell Kinetics Society (1986-87) and also President of the International Society for Analytical Cytology (1993-1994). Since 1972 his research has been continuously supported, including a prestigious MERIT award, by the grants from National Institute of Health. He was also a recipient of a grant from NASA to develop technologies for cell staining and analysis applicable to the micro-gravity conditions of the Space Station. Dr. Darzynkiewicz is the Editor or/Co-editor of 5 scientific journals and a Member of the Editorial Board of 11 other scientific journals.
Dr J Paul Robinson
Dr. J. Paul Robinson received his PhD from the University of NSW, Sydney, Australia. He is the SVM professor of Cytomics in the School of Veterinary Medicine, and a professor of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University, as well as an adjunct professor of Microbiology & Immunology, Lafayette Center for Medical Education in the Indiana University School of Medicine. He is a member of the Purdue University Cancer Center. He is the immediate past-president of the International Society for Advanced Cytometry and was elected to the College of Fellows, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2004. He is associate editor of 2 journals and founder and managing editor of Current Protocols in Cytometry. He established the Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories in 1989 and the laboratory is recognized as a leader in the field. His work has been funded by NIH, NSF, USDA and various agencies, foundations and private industry. In this regard he has developed very high content analytical tools using multispectral detection in both flow and imaging. These tools focus on both the hardware design (biomedical imaging) and the data analysis (informatics). Currently, the laboratory has been focused on very high throughput with very high content screening technologies that promise to increase our ability to define both phenotypic and functional status at very high speed. In addition, innovative scatter technologies have been developed by his group using laser light scatter for rapid analysis. These technologies are both low-cost, and non-destructive but also highly accurate. With a background in microbiology and immunology but a current focus on the biomedical engineering, the laboratory is highly multidisciplinary. He has been extensively involved in developing innovative educational materials from K-12 through to graduate level funded from NSF and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His most recent project has been the formation of a not-for-profit organization called "Cytometry for Life" which has been developing a very low cost, point-of-care counter for CD4 T cells suitable for resource-limited regions of the world. The goal of this program is to provide a robust, battery operated point-of-care counter with accurate, robust technology, requiring low power, almost no training and very low cost. The project is focusing on the needs of the vast population of HIV/AIDS individuals in Africa that do not have access to diagnostic technologies. He recently summated Mt. Everest to raise awareness of the issue of low cost technologies for AIDS in Africa.
Dr David Hedley and Sue Chow
Princess Margaret Hospital/Ontario Cancer Institute, University of Toronto
Presentation title: Studying complexity in solid tumours using high dimensional flow cytometry
Dr Hedley did his medical oncology and research training at the Institute of Cancer Research/Royal Marsden Hospital, University of London. He was a clinician/scientist at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, University of Sydney from 1981-1989, and during this time developed a strong interest in the application of flow cytometry to clinical oncology and cancer research, in collaboration with Ian Taylor. Among other achievements, he was responsible for the technique for DNA content analysis based on archival paraffin-embedded tissue, which is one of the most highly cited publications in the field of flow cytometry. Since 1990 he has been a senior staff physician in medical oncology at the Princess Margaret Hospital, and a senior scientist at the Ontario Cancer Institute, University of Toronto. He has published extensively on the application of flow cytometry to study cancer biology including mechanisms of drug resistance, cell death, and cell signaling. His group was the first to describe the use of flow cytometry to study signal transduction based on phosphospecific antibodies, and makes extensive use of this technique to study pharmacological effects of novel agents in early phase clinical trials.
Sue Chow obtained her degree in molecular biology at University of Toronto, and was manager of the flow cytometry facility at the Samuel Lunenfeld Institute, Mt Sinai Hospital, University of Toronto until 1990, when she was recruited to join David Hedley’s laboratory at the Princess Margaret Hospital/Ontario Cancer Institute. She has been responsible for the development and refinement of a wide range of flow cytometry techniques, including intracellular pH calibration, measurement of lipid peroxidation, quantification of glutathione, circulating tumour cell isolation, and cell signaling. Along with David Hedley and Vince Shankey she has optimized whole blood processing techniques to allow pharmacodynamic monitoring of signal transduction inhibitors in cancer patients. Sue Chow has been teaching the Los Alamos/Bowdoin College flow cytometry course for the past six years.
Dr John Sharpe
Founder, Photara Technologies Limited
Senior Scientis, New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research
John graduated with a PhD in Physics from Waikato University in 1997 after developing alternative optical systems for flow cytometry applications. Since this time, he has undertaken laser physics and biosensor research, worked in flow cytometry development at Cytomation, and recently founded Photara Technologies Limited to provide optical consulting activities to a number of international companies. John retains a part-time Senior Scientist position at the NZ Institute for Plant and Food Research while he works on a number of flow cytometry-related technology developments.
Mr Ian Dimmick
Flow Cytometry Core Facility Manager
Institute of Human Genetics, Newcastle, UK
Presentation title: The essentials required to achieve accurate multicolour flow Cytometry data
Ian Dimmick manages the flow cytometry core facility at the Institute of Human Genetics Newcastle upon tyne University in the UK. Ian has been active in the flow cytometry community in the United Kingdom and Europe especially teaching and training in flow cytometry courses in regular and advanced colour compensation.
Dr Graeme Chapman
Flow Cytometry Consultant
Graeme Chapman obtained his Ph.D. from the medical College of Georgia, Augusta GA, in Biochemistry. On returning to Australia he was involved in growing crystals of the protein pastocyanin for determining its structure by 3-D X-ray crystallography and research into patients on haemodialysis before setting up and running the flow cytometry laboratory in the Immunology Department at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney in 1981. There he was involved in establishing clinical flow cytometry and supporting research flow cytometry in the Immunology Department. He then spent 10 years with Coulter Electronics as their Technical and Applications Manager for flow cytometry and 7 years as Technical Specialist for flow cytometry at BD. In both of these positions he assisted customers with training, technical and applications support, across a wide range of clinical and research flow cytometry applications. Graeme has retired but still acts as a flow cytometry consultant to various laboratories in Brisbane.
Sponsor Presentations
Dr T Vincent Shankey
Advanced Technology/Cellular Analysis Business Group
Beckman Coulter, Inc.
Presentation title: Measurement of Multiple Signal Transduction Pathways in LPS Stimulated Human Peripheral Blood Monocytes
Dr. T. Vincent Shankey received his Ph.D. degree in Immunology and Medical Microbiology from the University of Florida School of Medicine (1977). He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from 1977 to 1981 where he worked on the genetics of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemias, and on regulation of Immunoglobulin synthesis in CLL B-cells. He has been involved in research utilizing flow and image cytometry for over thirty years and worked in clinical flow cytometry for much of that time. Before joining the Advanced Technology Group at Beckman Coulter in 2001, he was the Director of Research for the Urology Department and Scientific Director of the Clinical Flow Cytometry laboratory at Loyola University Medical Center near Chicago, Illinois.
Steve Le Moenic
Applications Manager
Beckman Coulter Australia
Steve is Applications Manager for Beckman Coulter in Australia. Steve has a research background in microbiology, developing flow cytometry methods to detect Cryptosporidium and Giardia by Flow Cytometry at Sydney Water then the U.S.EPA in Cincinnati, OH. He then spent a few years managing the flow cytometry facility at University of Edinburgh before taking on various positions at Cytomation and Dako in flow applications and training roles across Europe, Africa, Middle East and now more recently the Asia Pacific region.
Mr Joseph Trotter
Director, Cytometry / Advanced Technology Group
BD Biosciences
Joseph Trotter is a member of the Advanced Technology Group at BD Biosciences, where he is currently involved with several teams at BD developing flow cytometers and software. He was also a key member of the BDTM LSR II and FACSAria II development teams. Before joining BD in 2000, Joe was the Director of the Core Flow Cytometry Facility at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California (from 1995 to 2000), where he helped to equip the facility and developed improved sorting protocols, analytical procedures and software. He began his focus on flow cytometry in the mid 1970's while in the Cell Biology Laboratories of Robert Holley and Renato Dulbecco at the nearby Salk Institute, where in the 1970's and 1980's he helped to design and build several multiparameter flow cytometers (one analytical and two multilaser sorting cytometers, stream-in-air and cuvette) based on Los Alamos National Laboratory designs. Since the mid 1990's Joe has been teaching the Cell Sorting segment of the The Annual Course in Flow Cytometry held at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Bowdoin College, using several different cytometry platforms.
Gayle Buller
Senior Scientist, Flow Cytometry Reagent Development Team
Invitrogen
Gayle Buller graduated with a BS in biology from Willamette University in 1990. Gayle completed anther BS in Medical Technology from The Oregon Health Sciences University in 1992. Immediately following graduation, Gayle worked as a hematology specialist for several years before becoming a research scientist for Molecular Probes Inc. (ultimately acquired by Invitrogen, now a part of Life Technologies). Over her 15 year career for Molecular Probes / Invitrogen, Gayle worked in several areas until finding her niche in flow cytometry ultimately becoming one of the key team members who has worked to build the technology area within the company. Gayle is a Senior Scientist on the flow cytometry reagent development team specializing in non-antibody reagents. Gayle has an excellent working knowledge of fluorophores, applications, and instrumentation. Some of her accomplishments include the development of the Pacific Orange® dye for immunophenotyping, as well as the LIVE/DEAD® Fixable Dead Cell Stain Kits for viability detection. Gayle has also played a major role in the development of Qdot® primary antibody conjugates, and led the multicolor flow cytometry cocktail service.