There is not a single flow cytometry group in the land that has been revived as often as the ChUG. With varying degrees of success, the group has aimed at highlighting new technologies and ideas in the field to the researchers in Chicago.
It seems to me that now is a perfect time to get ChUG up and running again. With research in academia booming in the region and the development of new technologies and analysis methods, our mission will be to showcase the research in Chicago, highlight the newest technologies in the field of Cytometry and develop a community of users where help can easily be found.
I see three avenues through which we'll try to achieve these goals. The first one is through quarterly meetings where a topic of interest will be presented and discussed by experts. Our first meeting this year is a great example of what we want to achieve. We've invited Timothy Crawford, an invaluable source of knowledge on high parameters data. As a FlowJo application scientist, Tim has been training countless researchers in the proper ways of dealing with the various clustering algorithms.
Secondly, this blog will feature our observations and ideas about the way the field is developing. The content will be generated by members of the ChUG community, be we may also host views from out-of-towners that we find interesting. As such, feel free to contact us if you with t have your views presented here.
Finally, we have high hopes that the from will fill a gap in the way cytometry users reach out to one another. Not too long ago, the Google+ Flow Cytometry Community was a unique venue for researchers to get help with assays, communicate new ideas and get to know one another. When Google+ went away, nothing was left to take its place. Our goal with the forum is to rebuild this community and make it a vibrant market of ideas.
We hope you will find this initiative useful and join the fun.
David Leclerc