Abstract

Parallel Flow Cytometry Made Simple

Steven Graves, Professor, University of New Mexico, President & CEO, BennuBio Inc.

Cell killing pressure and turbulence created by high linear flow velocities, as well as the stochastic arrival of particles, inherently limit any single stream flow cytometer to approximately 50,000 events per second and flow rates of about 250 microliters to a milliliter per minute. As particle size increases, these limitations worsen due to increased turbulence in the required larger flow channels, which thereby limits the achievable linear velocities and reduces analytical rate to hundreds of particles per second. These limitations prevent flow cytometry from being used efficiently in applications that range from extremely rare cell analysis to the use of large multicellular systems in pharmaceutical discovery.  Therefore, there have been many efforts to create parallel flow cytometers, which can increase analytical and volumetric rates through the use of multiple streams. However, such systems have been plagued by complexity due to the use of multiple channels, optical paths, and laser sources that make long term operation extremely difficult. Here we present a highly parallel flow cytometer that uses a multinode acoustic standing wave, a line focused laser, and a high speed sCMOS camera to create a single optical path, single laser, and single detector system that will be able to detect up to 16 colors of emitted/scattered light from up to 4 excitation lasers.