Farmingdale, May 11, 2006 : The Pharmaceutical, Cosmetic and Nutraceutical Alliance (PCNA) completed its successful Spring 2006 series of public meetings. At this meeting, the audience heard Dr. Frances Santiago-Schwarz, Dr. Matthew Bahamonde and Dr. Charles Adair describe their experiences in dealing with the Pharmaceutical, Cosmetic and Nutraceutical companies .
The Professors provided real life examples of past collaboration between themselves and Industry and pointed to the potential of partnership in the future. Specifically, Dr. Frances Santiago-Schwarz gave a very interesting presentation of Flow Cytometry, a technology with well established roots at SUNY Farmingdale and how the research has been influenced by industry and nurtured by the University.
Flow Cytometry is hot! Google it and follow a few of the links. Close to 7 million hits on a technology that most of us had never heard of before. Here is just one link that may give you an idea http://flowcyt.salk.edu/sitelink.html of just how hot and happinin this technology is. That’s the beauty of PCNA , we put this sort of stuff in front of you!
Lets start with the definition of Flow Cytometry as provided by Wikipedia
“Flow cytometry is a technique for counting, examining and sorting microscopic particles suspended in a stream of fluid. It allows simultaneous multiparametric analysis of the physical and/or chemical characteristics of single cells flowing through an optical/electronic detection apparatus.”
I would add, based on what we learned that evening… “Instantly” and “Flawlessly” and that it need not be cells. Molecules of any sort, when passed through this process maybe instantly identified.
The Doctor’s presentation lead to quite the discussion of just how the technology might be applied in our own industry, specifically manufacturing. The instant analysis of blends, compounds, raw materials, validation, Quality Control and more. With help from the most willing team of researchers at SUNY Farmingdale, in addition to Internship, Mentorship programs, local industry is in an excellent position to engage university resources in new and innovative programs, You can be sure PCNA will follow up on this topic within the very near future.
Please note that we have tentatively scheduled our Fall seminars for Thursday Oct 5, 2006 and Thursday November 16, 2006. The meetings will be held on the campus of Farmingdale State University.
The presentation given by Dr. Frances Santiago-Schwarz has been converted to Adobe PDF and is available here :