Basic Principles of Flow Cytometer Operation: The Make your Own Flow Cytometer

Flow cytometry is a critical technology for biomedical analysis and is an essential component of almost any study of the immune system. Widespread usage and increasing instrument complexity have, however, led to increasing neglect of education in their basic operating principles, a common situation with many technologies. This chapter describes the basics of flow cytometer operation using the Make Your Own Flow Cytometer ( https://www.cytometryworks.com ), a working cytometer than can be assembled by students into a functional instrument. This project and others like it is seeing widespread usage in biomedical education and can serve as models for like-minded investigators who wish to build their own systems. They also provide a good mechanism to introduce the key operational principles of flow cytometry as illustrated here.