Highly versatile benchtop Flow Cytometry Analyzer

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The requested funding will be crucial for the purchase of a versatile flow cytometry analyser that is urgently lacking at the Institution of the applicants (Faculty of Pharmacy at the Université de Montreal). All the requesting applicants are young researchers within the first year of their independent research activities. During this first year they realized that the cytometer availableat their Faculty (20 years old) cannot not support their research programs, and drafted this funding request for the purchase of an urgently needed equipment. ******The requested instrument is the CytoFLEX S Flow Cytometry Analyzer from Beckman Coulter Canada, a highly versatile benchtop flow cytometer that offers a high degree of flexibility, the most advanced fluorescent detection technology (avalanche photodiode detectors), and can be finely customized to perfectly fit the need of the researchers. More in details, a 4 lasers option (488, 638, 405 and 561 nm) offering the potential simultaneous analyse of up to 9 different colors has been selected. Compared to other benchtop instruments, aside from more classical flow cytometry analysis on cell, this instrument allows the direct analysis of particles as small as 80 nm (with the violet side scatter), which is a crucial point for the research performed by two of the applicants (on synthetic nanoparticles and viruses). Moreover, it offers a high potential for further upgrade (filters, automated multiwall plate, etc.). All those details make the requested instrument ideal in several research fields such as the development and assessment of bioinspired and targeted drug delivery carriers and diagnostic tools, the assessment of pharmacokinetic profiles of life-saving antimicrobial drugs and development of pharmacokinetics models, the design of functional 3D engineered brain models for the study of pathological hallmarks of neurodegenerative diseases and the identification of crucial biochemical pathways involved in the progression of several diseases. ******The Faculty of the applicants (Faculty of Pharmacy, Université de Montréal) is currently solely equipped with a 20-year old flow cytometer with unacceptable limited functionalities and requiring frequent costly revisions. Although a flow cytometry facility is available on the campus of the Faculty, the service is expensive (40 $/h) and, most importantly, cannot sustain the routine access needed by the applicants and the other members of the Faculty. The lack of the instruments does have several negative repercussion on the overall start of the applicant's research programs: it strongly limits their experimental potentials and associated training of highly qualified personnel. **