BIO-RADCOURTESY OF BIO-RAD LABORATORIESUntil recently, cell sorting was a constant topic of conversation in Stacy Blain’s lab—and not in a good way. Blain, an assistant professor of cell biology and pediatrics at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, recalls long strategy sessions with her senior graduate student on coaxing their ancient, huge cell sorter to perform. But since purchasing a compact, highly automated Bio-Rad S3 cell sorter in January 2014, her team zips through its sorts and can move on to thinking about their research questions.
“It is really a piece of equipment for small labs who want to ask questions, and don’t want the sorting to take on a life of its own,” she says. “The sorting is just a means to get you a tool to do the experiment.”
The S3 also makes it easier for Blain, who codirects a small core facility for her department, to train users and leave them to work unsupervised while she teaches classes or does her own research.
Instruments for fluorescence-activated cell sorting were once uniformly bulky and required experts at core facilities to operate. But a new generation of smaller, cheaper sorters that have emerged in the past few years allows researchers to perform simple sorts on their own, often with only ...
