Course Modern Flow Cytometry: An Intensive Theoretical and Practical Course

The course B69/35 Modern Flow Cytometry: An Intensive Theoretical and Practical Course is being offered by the Graduate School of Health, Aarhus University, Fall 2027.

Criteria for participation: University degree in medicine, dentistry, nursing, or Master’s degree in other fields and/or postgraduate research fellows (PhD students and research-year medical students).

Aim: The aim of the course is to provide a solid theoretical and practical foundation in modern flow cytometry, enabling participants to interpret and conduct flow cytometric experiments independently.

Learning outcomes: 

Participants will:

1. Be able to explain the basic principles behind flow cytometry
2. Be able to interpret and analyze data generated by flow cytometry
3. Gain practical experience with flow cytometry experiment design
4. Get hands-on, practical experience with data analysis
5. Get hands-on, practical experience with different instruments
6. Be able to evaluate essential flow cytometry controls
7. Be introduced to common (and not so common) pitfalls
8. Be introduced to various applications and limitations of flow cytometry
9. Be able to critically interpret flow cytometry results and published flow cytometry data

Workload: The full workload of the course is expected to be 37 hours

Content: 

This course initially covers basic flow cytometry and will each day move on to more advanced aspects of the technique. All parts will be covered – from how a flow cytometer is designed and work – through experiment design and sample preparation – to data analysis and interpretation.

On the instrumentation side, the course provides a detailed introduction to the core components in modern flow cytometers, thus covering light detection principles, fluidics, optics and signal processing. In addition, participants will get hands-on experience on various instruments, e.g. standard flow cytometers, spectral flow cytometer, ImageStream, and cell sorters.

Participants will practice antibody panel design, experiment design, flow cytometry controls, and data analysis through a hands-on approach via practical computer exercises with FlowJo software and generic, raw flow cytometry data files. Advanced data analysis approaches (clustering, dimensionality reduction, tSNE and more) are presented in the last part of the course. In addition, guidelines for publishing flow cytometry data will be covered.

Instructors: Charlotte Christie Petersen, Anja Bille Bohn, Thomas Rea Wittenborn and Mikkel Steen Petersen

Venue: Aarhus University, Aarhus

Participation in the course is without cost for:

• PhD students, Health Research Year students from Aarhus University
• PhD students enrolled at partner universities of the Nordoc collaboration
• PhD students from other institutions in the open market agreement for PhD courses

Course dates:

• 27 September 2027 08:30 - 16:00
• 28 September 2027 08:30 - 16:00
• 29 September 2027 08:30 - 16:00
• 30 September 2027 08:30 - 16:00
• 01 October 2027 08:30 - 16:00
• 04 October 2027