With recent guidance released from the FDA, there are changes for PKs (Pharmacokinetics) and ADCs (Antibody Drug Conjugates) that must be clearly understood before making decisions for your drug product testing. ADCs combine the target specificity of monoclonal antibodies with the…

With the extensive advances in technologies like CRISPR and CAR-T, cell and gene therapy has grown to become a viable way for treating Cancer as well as other diseases. Our team has over 100+ years of collective expertise in molecular services using qPCR and ddPCR for support of…

Anyone who starts an investigation of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) soon finds out the complexity of this disease. Although daunting initially, it soon becomes apparent the need for complex classifications for AML subtypes and different mechanisms for formation. AML forms from a wide variety of DNA mutations leading to numerous phenotypic changes in the blood makeup. Early on there were the French-American-British classifications in the 1970s (FAB) but in present day, AML type is being broken down to genetic markers. For the most part, this is due to the advancement of scientific-technical capability. Conversely, being able to clearly define AML by mechanistic function, allows for clinicians to state, with some certainty, treatment and survival options for their patients.

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) are now understood to be key players in anti-tumor responses. These cells are found in solid tumors such as those observed in breast cancer, ovarian cancer, melanoma, and lung cancer. TILs have now been harnessed to treat cancer through adoptive cell therapy protocols. As TILs are a major area of focus for both basic and clinical research, flow cytometry applications for identifying and characterizing TILs are increasingly important. Consider these key points if you are pursuing TIL research and plan to use flow cytometry.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy is transforming patient-specific cancer treatment, even for the most challenging forms of cancer. CAR T cells are made by isolating a patient’s T cells from the blood and engineering them in the lab so that they can specifically fight the patient’s cancer. This custom-made biologic is both time and labor-intensive and extremely costly, but it is also an extremely effective form of treatment.

The term 'Dendritic Cells' (DCs) represents a family of immune cells derived from CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow, with various functions that provide a key link between the innate and adaptive immune responses. The most widely described function of DCs is to capture, process, and present antigens to adaptive immune cells and mediate their transition to effector functions. In fact, DCs are the only antigen-presenting cells capable of stimulating naïve T-cells. In recent years, DCs have become the focus of translational research efforts to describe the role these cells play in allergies, autoimmunity, and cancer as well as their role in vaccine responses. In this blog, we explore the flow cytometry approaches used to examine DCs and their potential as therapeutic targets.