What’s New for HyperCyt V3.4 Software?

Author: Aaron Kennington; Published: Dec 14, 2010; Category: Flow Cytometry, HyperCyt User Support; Tags: HyperView, New Software Release; Comments Off

With each new HyperCyt software release, you can expect to see bug fixes and new features both large and small. With the HyperCyt V3.4 software release, one of the main goals was to significantly improve performance. We have done so in several ways.

First off, with this release we now officially support Windows 7 for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. Specifically, with Windows 7 64-bit, our software can now use as much memory as you have installed in your computer for data analysis, whereas previously on Windows XP 32-bit, our software was generally limited to 2GB of memory.  So, if your HyperView Analysis computer has 4GB+ or more of memory, and you have been working with large FCS data files and more complex data analysis (i.e. more histograms, populations, statistics, and heat maps), you will see a large speed up in performance in HyperView Data Analysis.

Secondly, we have also re-worked our code to improve our memory usage on all Windows operating systems and we have speeded up our histogram display code.  For users requiring FCS file stitching, you will now find that this process is now two to six times faster than the previous release.

A feature that was requested by IntelliCyt scientists is the Create Logical Wells Population. It is now faster and easier to create well logical populations by simply highlighting the wells of interest using a multi-selection plate control.

Other useful new features include:

• Gating on any logical population.  Another request from our internal researchers that they find very useful in assay development.
• Higher resolution for 2D histograms displaying  the time channel.   This is a great troubleshooting tool, for when you want to zoom into a particular area of the histogram.
• Setting compensation is now much easier to use.  Using a floating compensation dialog box, that can be brought up from either Populations or Well Identification mode,  any compensation changes can  be previewed for all the histograms before being committed.
• Plate layout format for exported statistics from stats or heat maps. When you export statistics with the Excel Export button, you have the choice to select a grid format, which is an well ordered list, or plate format.

There are many more features that have been included in this release. If you have not already done so, I would encourage you to upgrade to take advantage of the performance enhancements and great new features in HyperCyt V3.4. Contact us to get the FTP download information.

The Role of Flow Cytometry in Drug Development: Highlights from the MetroFlow 2010 Fall Meeting

Author: Linda Trinkle; Published: Dec 11, 2010; Category: Drug Discovery, Flow Cytometry; Tags: Biomarkers, Small Molecule Screening, Target Validation, Toxicity; Comments Off

Congratulations to Peter Lopez, president of MetroFlow, and all of the organizers who created a really strong educational program about current and potential future uses for flow cytometry in the area of drug development. The Fall MetroFlow meeting was hosted by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, located in Tarrytown, NY.

Virginia Litwin, Ph.D., from Covance moderated the program and began with an Introduction to the Role of Flow Cytometry in Drug Development. Virginia also gave a touching tribute to Phil Marder, who passed away earlier this year and will be missed by all of us who knew him. Phil and Virginia co-edited a book, Flow Cytometry in Drug Discovery and Development that was just published this month. Some of the contributors to the book presented at this meeting, providing additional insight into Biomarkers, Small Molecule Discovery and Oncology Drug Discovery.

The talks were organized to provide some insight into how flow cytometry is being used in the drug discovery process.  Dimitris Skokos, Ph.D., from Regeneron, spoke on New Target Discovery, describing how combining multicolor flow cytometry with high-throughput genomic engineering has allowed them to characterize the full hematopoietic cell profile of genetically engineered mice lacking Delta-like ligand 4.

Addressing Target Validation, Carmen Raventos-Suarez, PhD., from Bristol Myers-Squibb, presented  data which clearly illustrated how, using multicolor flow cytometry, “cells within discrete populations can be identified before and after treatment using cell cycle profiles and molecular markers, thus providing evidence that treatment is within a mechanism and modulating the signaling cascade.” And, on a personal note, I was happy to hear her report that she has found the HyperCyt to be a valuable tool in expediting their research.

Speaking on Small Molecule Discovery, Larry Sklar, Ph.D., from the University of New Mexico Center for Molecular Discovery, presented a number of examples of screening assays using the HyperCyt flow cytometry platform in his talk, “High-throughput Flow Cytometry, Small Molecule Discovery and the NIH Roadmap Molecular Libraries Initiative.” Larry also presented on grant opportunities that are available to researchers who want to collaborate on projects.

Pre-clinical Toxicology was discussed by Dave McFarland, from iCyte in: “The Search for a Biomarker of Drug-induced Vascular Injury.” He also spoke about  flow cytometric analysis of blood and how it  holds the potential to provide such a biomarker.

There were too many outstanding presentations at the Fall Meeting to discuss in this post, but they will all be available soon for you to view on the MetroFlow meeting archive page.