FlowCAP - Flow Cytometry: Critical Assessment of
Population Identification Methods
Flow cytometry has been widely used by immunologists
and cancer biologists for more than 30 years as a biomedical research tool to
distinguish different cell types in mixed populations based on the expression
of cellular markers. It has also become a widely used diagnostic tool for
clinicians to identify abnormal cell populations associated with disease. In
the last decade, advances in instrumentation and reagent technologies have
enabled simultaneous single-cell measurement of tens of surface and
intracellular markers, as well as tens of signaling molecules, positioning flow
cytometry to play an even bigger role in medicine and systems biology. However,
the rapid expansion of flow cytometry applications has outpaced the
functionality of traditional analysis tools used to interpret flow cytometry
data such that scientists are faced with the daunting prospect of manually
identifying interesting cell populations in 20 dimensional data from a
collection of millions of cells. For these reasons a
reliable automated approach to flow cytometric
analysis is desirable. While there has been a growing interest among the
scientific community in developing these methods, guidance for end users about
appropriate use and application of these methods is scarce.
In response to this need, we are pleased to announce
the Flow Cytometry: Critical Assessment
of Population Identification Methods (FlowCAP)
project. The goal of FlowCAP is to advance the
development of computational methods for the identification of cell populations
of interest in flow cytometry data. FlowCAP will
provide the means to objectively test these methods, first by comparison to
manual analysis by experts using common datasets, and second by prediction of a
clinical/biological outcome.
FlowCAP-IV Summit
A summit will be held as part of the CYTO conference from 17 to 21 May 2014. Participation is open to all conference attendees.
FlowCAP-IV Materials
· Call for Participants: [pdf]
· Access to data: rbrinkman [at] bccrc [dot] ca
FlowCAP-III Summit
An NIH/NIAID-sponsored summit was held at the NIH
campus from 29 to 30 Nov 2012 and open to the community through generous
sponsorship by ISAC and NIH/NIAID.
For more details, please visit here.
FlowCAP-III Materials
· Call for Participants: [pdf]
FlowCAP-II Summit
An NIH/NIAID-sponsored summit was held at the NIH campus
from 22 to 23 Sept 2011. Participation was by invitation only. Participants in
the FlowCAP challenges were invited to present their
work.
For more details, please visit here.
FlowCAP-I Summit
An NIH/NIAID-sponsored summit was held at the NIH campus
from 21 to 22 Sept 2010. Participation was by invitation only. Participants in
the FlowCAP challenges were invited to present their
work.
For more details, please visit here.
FlowCAP-I Materials
· Mailing List: [html]
· Time Line: [html]
· Call for Datasets: [pdf]
· Participant Guide: [pdf]
· Dataset Description: [pdf]
· Data Formatting Submission Example: [pdf]
· FlowCAP Summit 2010: [html]
Organizing Committee
· Ryan Brinkman, British Columbia Cancer Agency
· Raphael Gottardo, Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center
· Tim Mosmann, University of
Rochester
· Richard H. Scheuermann, J. Craig Venter Institute
Core Developers
· Nima Aghaeepour, University of British Columbia
· Greg Finak, Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center
Acknowledgements
· National Institute of Health
· National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
· British Columbia Cancer Agency
· Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
· University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
· TreeStar Inc.
· University of British Columbia
Publications and Availability
Please visit here.