“E All’ottavo Giorno, Dio Creò La Citometria … and on the 8th Day, God Created Cytometry”

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Abstract

Flow cytometry has been available for about 50 years, but the core technology has changed very little. This constancy achieves two things: it makes the technology stronger as it has long-term development, but it also means that many applications may be a little stale. This chapter is an attempt to outline how the technology evolved into its current form and to identify the key changes that occurred along the way. While not every aspect of the evolution is documented herein, it is an attempt at framing the discoveries within the context of flow cytometry–specific demands. Flow cytometry evolved slowly for the first 15 years and then rapidly developed into one of the most significant cellular analysis technologies available to cell biologists.

Keywords

Cytometry history Cytometry invention Ink-jet printing Cell sorting Multicolor phenotyping Monoclonal antibodies 
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Copyright information

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories, Department of Biomedical EngineeringPurdue UniversityWest LafayetteUSA
  2. 2.Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories, Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Weldon School of Biomedical EngineeringPurdue UniversityWest LafayetteUSA

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