Yale Flow Cytometry Facility

Our mission is to provide comprehensive flow cytometric analysis and sorting including instrumentation, technical support, training and consultation.

Flow cytometry is a technology that simultaneously measures and then analyzes multiple physical characteristics of single particles, usually cells, as they flow in a fluid stream through a beam of light. The properties measured include a particle’s relative size, relative granularity or internal complexity, and relative fluorescence intensity. These characteristics are determined using an optical-to-electronic coupling system that records how the cell or particle scatters incident laser light and emits fluorescence. Any suspended particle or cell from 0.5–150 micrometers in size is suitable for analysis. Cells from solid tissue must be disaggregated before analysis. Sorting allows us to capture and collect cells of interest for further analysis. Once collected, the cells can be analyzed microscopically, biochemically, or functionally.