Evolution of Flow Cytometry as a Drug Screening Platform

Flow Cytometry is an established technology used in many research and clinical laboratories. The largest users are immunologists and haematologists who use it for cell sorting and analysis. Increasing requirements for processing larger numbers of patient samples led to the development of automated tube loading carousels and, later multiwall plate-based sampling systems. The high speed quantitative high content analysis of cells also makes flow cytometry an attractive technology for drug discovery applications and it is used at many stages of this process. Recently it is also finding a niche in drug screening laboratories sharing bench space with other high throughput technologies. Flow cytometry is becoming an ideal tool, particularly in an environment where primary cell-based assays are increasingly being deployed to monitor drug responses.