Fun couple of weeks working with the wonderful Michalina Mazurczyk at the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. We were in the clinic when our wonderful volunteers had their bone marrow test and swept the cells away to the lab in record time to get them frozen as quickly as possible. Then, many months (and o-so-many spreadsheets) later we have designed and validated the finest cytometry by time of flight (CyTOF) antibody panel, which can not only identify all immune cell subsets but also measure their activation and metabolic state.
We have now thawed these precious bone marrow cells and spent a ridiculous number of hours sticking metal-tagged antibodies to them. And now they speed towards oblivion giving us weird and wonderful patterns in this little rain plot as they hit the detector. We can’t wait to see what the data reveals! How do immune progenitors and memory cells in the bone marrow respond to malaria? Literally nobody knows. But we are on the cusp of finding out. Just a few more 14 hour days and a very powerful computer (called Uncle Monty) and all will be revealed. So excited!
Cytometry by time of flight (CyTOF) in action. Fun fact: the CyTOF machine is called HELIOS because the plasma torch heats to the temperature of the surface of the sun to vaporise cells for analysis.