ICyS - Summary of the Inaugural Meeting

On Friday 20th May, the Inaugural Meeting of the Irish Cytometry Society took place in the UCD-Conway Institute. The event was organised and chaired by Alfonso Blanco, who manages the flow cytometry suite within the Institute. Talks given at the meeting were as follows: William Watson, Surgery Dept., UCD Mater Hospital & Conway Institute spoke about the "Advantages of Flow Cytometry in measuring Cell Cycle and Apoptosis - Key pathways in cancer development". This was followed by a presentation on "Phenotypic and Functional Analysis of Lymphocytes" by Joan Ni Gabhann of the Children's Research Centre, Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin. Lucy Golden-Mason from the Education and Research Centre, St. Vincent's University Hospital, Elm Park addressed the delegates on the "Characterisation of Hematopoietic Stem Cells in Human Tissue". This was followed by a lecture on the "Use of Flow Cytometry for over-expression / down-regulation experiments in mammalian cells" by Michael Gantier, UCD Medicine and Therapeutics & Conway Institute. The last lecture of the day was "Applications of Flow Cytometry in Plant Biology" by Susanne Barth of Teagasc Crops Research Centre.

The creation of the Irish Cytometry Society was successfully approved by everybody as well as the logo of the Society.

To develop this interesting society some flow related companies have offered their help and they have been shown very interested in participating in this group and feel it is a very exciting forum for discussion and they have also offered us their support as sponsorships for future meetings, application courses, workshops,… organized by the ICyS.

The main objectives for the future are:
- Keep doing this kind of meetings once or twice per year
- Create a web page and developing a mailing list
- Create a Database with group and equipment details

This inaugural user group meeting was deemed a great success with many useful exchanges and new contacts made overall during the informal discussions over coffee at the inaugural meeting of the Irish Cytometry Society.

To see some pictures of this day click here

For more information, look the "UCD Conway news web page"