I have some strong words to end the year and I am going to say them!!
Of course
you don t have to read them!

Cytometry is now 40 years old and it s been sort of decaying a bit.
What
do I mean? I am amazed at how conservative and frankly boring the
field
has become. Why?

Wake up people - times are changing - look at all these new small
companies trying to stick their noses in "our" field!

Wake up people - times are changing - look at all these new small
companies trying to stick their noses in "our" field!

From: J. Paul Robinson <j..._at_flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu> Date: Fri Dec
28 2007 - 13:43:46 EST
Beware, the end is nigh!
No, not an apocalyptic prediction - but 2007 is definitely coming to
an
end. Not before time I would say - it s been a busy year. But I have
some strong words to end the year and I am going to say them!! Of
course
you don t have to read them!
Cytometry is now 40 years old and it s been sort of decaying a bit.
What
do I mean? I am amazed at how conservative and frankly boring the
field
has become. Why? It s time to move to the 21st century folks. I'm
getting older and frankly, its time to kick some butt as my younger
colleagues often say. We talk so much like it is the same old
cytometry
it has always been. Wake up people - times are changing - look at all
these new small companies trying to stick their noses in "our" field!
True we need to do the core work and do it well, but lets not forget
that fundamental tools of cell analysis are changing and if we don't
keep ourselves up-to-date and educated on what's happening....before
we
know it, a new field will emerge and we will be like the old electron
microscopists who are still wondering what happened ......

I know most of us work in the field and like what we do, but I think
its
time to open up a little and try to do some serious integration of
our
field. It s not happening very effectively on the most part I would
say.
Cytometry is about integration of the tools of the field into the
vast
reaches of biological problems that we can contribute to solving.
Cytometry is about advancement of the field, that means always
looking
ahead. ISAC will soon be the International Society for Advancement of
Cytometry a 21st century Society not a 20th century Society.

Cytometry is not flow cytometry!! Let s not kid ourselves about this
folks. Cytometry is about measuring cells - however you do it - and
flow
cytometry is just one component of many. I understand that it may be
the
only tool some of you use - I don t want to take away from that or de-
emphasize its value or importance. But, we so often hear people talk
about our field only in context of just flow cytometry. Recently,
when
we polled the ISAC community on changing our name from "analytical
Cytology" to Advancement of Cytometry" we received comments like "hey
I
don t do flow cytometry, so why are you reducing the breadth of the
field?" Ouch - they think "cytometry" means "flow cytometry". We have
a
long way to go before we convince the community that we cover all
aspects of cytometry. And let s also remember the growing membership
in
India and China (that s half the worlds population right there) it s
high time we paid much more attention to these countries as a field.
Awtar Krishan can t be the only person to drive cytometry training
and
education for 1.2 billion Indians can he? Well he has been up to now.
Who is taking on the mantle of training and education of cytometry in
China?

So here's the scoop. That's one of the reasons why the Purdue Web
portal
is going to change. We tried to make the change this past year, but
there were too many other things happening here to achieve it. But
come
middle of 2008, I am resolved that you will see a huge difference in
the
Purdue site. It s been the default cytometry communication portal now
for many, many years. We have focused on good clean fun with cytometry
-
quality, timely, simple - no spam. Many people like that actually.
The
portal is almost overwhelming for us 22,000 daily page requests with
over 2 Gigs daily download. In 2007 alone, downloads of 208,000
powerpoint files, 233,000 PDF files, 8800 movies, 38,000 word
document
files. The education pages and the Cytometry Discussion Archive are
the
most hit for sure. Over 125,000 distinct files from our portal were
accessed in 2007.

But all good things must come to an end. Come July 2008, the usual
Purdue web portal may well be no more. It will be replaced with
something entirely new. Hopefully most will find it more useful and
relevant - some will not like it. Maybe we will be able to make
everyone
happy....ha!..C'est la vie. Some of you will be beta testers and
advisers I hope.

So my best wishes to all in the cytometry field for 2008. Regarding
the
past year on the discussion list, its been lively, with an average of
7
messages per day with 754 different individuals submitting at least
one
message. 139 messages had at least 6 responses. There were 1205
unique
subject lines. Subscribers came from 64 top level domains. The usual
bunch of suspects answered lots of messages and Marty Bigos seems to
have too much time as he answered the most (thanks Marty!!).
Tragically,
the second most prolific responder was Randy Fisher who passed away
on
December 5. Randy's responses were always short, to the point and
accurate. It hurts to lose one of our own, particularly when it's one
of
our most active members. But that s the point isn't it. For many
years
to come, we have the value of Randy's hundreds of suggestions over
the
years archived for the many new people who enter our field. Many of
you
probably never actually met Randy - but I bet most of you feel you
knew
him. One of the mysteries of the web I suppose. Our condolences to
Randy's family - perhaps they didn't know how many people knew Randy
"electronically" - but we all did. You know we are a small field when
it
comes to the big world of science so when we lose one person, the
entire
field morns.

To end 2007, let me make a big plug for a program we began at the
2006
ISAC congress. Gary Durack from iCyt and myself started a small not-
for-profit charity called "Cytometry for Life" in response to Stephen
Lewis' compelling plea for some low cost CD4 devices. Our field
has done a lot of talking about this, but only a few people have
really
tried to do anything practical. Well, folks we have all been doing
cytometry for a very long time - it's time to do something.
"Cytometry
for life" (http://www.cytometryforlife.org) is working hard. We have
made tremendous progress in just one year. It would be great if you
all
decided to jump on board and play a small part. You can give money,
advice, moral support, talk to your politicians, community
healthcare,

charities, whatever. But get involved as be recognized as the
cytometry
community to solve this problem of bringing low cost, portable
devices
to the 65% or more of African's who don t live in the cities and
towns
where current CD4 technologies are available. Our goal is to work in
areas not being served by current technologies. We have heard these
calls before, but folks we have to deal with this problem - it's your
problem if you call yourself a "cytometry" person. Email me if you
can
help - consider donating to the program, let's make it work. By the
end
of 2008, I want to be telling you that the program is getting to
people
who need this desperately. Help us achieve that for 2008.

I hope many of you got hold of a copy of our new double DVD set
Cytometry 60 years of Innovation if not ask your local rep from
virtually any company in our field. It might give you a good sense of
how strong the foundation in our field really is. I will see many of
you
at the 2008 congress in Budapest. I know some of you think its going
to
be expensive so I took several hours myself and created a webpage for
the cheap ones out there so you have no excuses not to go... (http://
www.cyto.purdue.edu/flowcyt/cheapflights1.htm).

It's been a privilege to serve for the past 19 months as President of
ISAC. I will gladly pass that hat to Bob Murphy in May. ISAC is alive
and well - membership is growing daily. I would not be surprised to
see
us top 2000 by the end of the Congress in May. I know that about 60%
of
the members of this list are NOT ISAC members. Perhaps you should
consider joining the Society that keeps many of you in business?
http://www.isac-net.org/

My best wishes for you all in 2008 from Purdue Paul

--
J. Paul Robinson
SVM Professor of Cytomics
Professor of Immunopharmacology & Biomedical Engineering
Director, Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories
President, International Society for Analytical Cytology

Purdue Cytometry Mail List Postings On Google

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