Common Mistakes in FACS-based Science & Fantasy

Mario Roederer (Roederer@Darwin.Stanford.EDU)
Wed, 11 Sep 1996 17:14:48 -0800

A student in the lab here decided to do a small presentation to her class on
FACS... basic theories etc.... She asked me for a reference on "common
mistakes" that people make in FACS. I'm not aware of a compendium devoted
solely to such a topic, and thought it might be interesting to put together some
material on this. (Yup, another tutorial Web Page...). If there is Web
material out there, let me know so I can put in links.

Thus, I would like to solicit ideas and examples from the community. There are
the major things, like bad compensation (and what that leads to); more subtle
problems like mistaken inferences from viewing dot plots instead of contour
plots; and related topics like the problems of Cy5 "binding" to monocytes.
I.e., I'm looking for things that a person who is just trying to do a simple
experiment might encounter but wouldn't realize without the years of experience
that an operator might have. General topics might include: sample preparation
(this should only include facets specific to flow cytometry); instrumentation;
data analysis; and data presentation.

Please respond directly to me: Roederer@Darwin.Stanford.Edu. Please send
things you think are obvious (I rarely think of obvious things!), send me your
pet peeves, etc. Unless you specify, anything that results will acknowledge
your contribution.

mr