How Flow Cytometry and FlowJo Can Be Used to Analyze T-cell Phenotype

It is common in industry to analyze T-cell data with flow cytometry and FlowJo. Flow cytometry is a technique used to detect and measure physical and chemical characteristics of a population of cells or particles. FlowJo, is the software program that is used for analyzing flow cytometry data. Both are essential techniques and tools used to evaluate T-cell characteristics and phenotypes. There are several different states of T-cells: naïve, memory, and effector. There are different surface markers that help to differentiate one stage from another. Knowing what state the T-cell is in can give you an indication of what is going on in the immune system. My research position at PACT Pharma has allowed me to investigate the applications and troubleshooting of both Flow Cytometry and FlowJo. The goal of this project was to become more experienced by gaining practical experience with flow cytometry techniques to evaluate T-cell state from patient samples and then use FlowJo to understand and format the data to impart my knowledge and findings to others.