Corporate On Demand Workshop

Beckman Coulter

“Critical Role of Flow Cytometry in Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Laboratories ”

Presenters:
D. Robert Sutherland, BSc, MSc
Dr. Andreas Böhmler


In this workshop, Robert Sutherland, our renowned guest speaker, will give an overview of the critical role of stem cell enumeration and why it is essential to follow a strict process for analyzing hematopoietic stem cells for a successful transplantation. Furthermore, Andreas Böhmler, Director of Strategic Marketing for Clinical Solutions at Beckman Coulter Life Sciences, will introduce the company’s new automated walk-away solution for clinical CD34+ stem cell enumeration, the AQUIOS STEM System. Flow cytometric CD34+ stem cell enumeration is routinely performed to optimize timing of peripheral blood stem cell collections and assess engraftment capability of the apheresis product.

In 1957, Edward Donnall Thomas reported the first successful bone marrow transplant on a patient. Fast forward to the last few decades we see the rate at which the quality of these transplantations has increased. Different factors need to be considered to make a transplantation successful. One of the critical steps is the precise enumeration of viable CD34+ hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. In early 1995, the International Society of Hematotherapy and Graft Engineering (ISHAGE) established a Stem Cell Enumeration Committee, the mandate of which was to validate a simple, rapid, and sensitive flow cytometric method to quantitate CD34+ cells in peripheral blood and apheresis products.

While a number of different flow methodologies have been described, the highly standardized ISHAGE protocol is currently the most widely employed, and single platform ISHAGE protocol is the most reliable method currently available to quantitate accurately this important subset of cells. The AQUIOS STEM System was designed together with leading experts in the field of clinical CD34+ enumeration with the goal to bring the Gold Standard to the next level. It is a modular approach for the automated analysis of CD34+ hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells on the AQUIOS CL Flow Cytometer.