MAPPING THE NEIGHBORHOOD: Mouse spleen section stained with 30 antibodies, but showing only two at a time (left). The schematic on the right uses all 30 antibodies to determine cell types and cell neighborhoods. Using tissue sections, immunologists can consider cell types in the context of the tissues and neighborhoods in which they reside. COURTESY GARRY NOLAN
It was a good day for immunology when Stanford University’s Garry Nolan met Scott Tanner at a conference in 2009. Tanner’s University of Toronto lab had developed an instrument that could simultaneously measure the expression of 40–50 unique markers in individual cells of a blood or tissue sample.
The tool was Cytometry by Time of Flight, or “mass cytometry” (see “Flow Cytometry for the Masses,” The Scientist, December 2011). As part of this technique, which was a 2011 Top 10 Innovation winner in The Scientist’s annual competition, antibodies attached to heavy metal isotopes bind to target antigens in a blood or tissue sample. The cells are sprayed into an argon plasma, or high-temperature ionized gas, which vaporizes them and ionizes the metals. A mass spectrometer ...
