The World's First Spectral and Real-Time Imaging Cell Analyzer Makes its Pre-Launch Debut at the MSK Flow Cytometry Core Facility
April 02, 2025
When the pioneering BD CellView™ Image Technology was first showcased in Science,1 the flow cytometry community welcomed it with immense enthusiasm. This high-speed imaging fluorescence-enabled cell sorting enables researchers to combine flow cytometry with real-time imaging. This technology coupled with full-spectrum optical detection capabilities of the BD SpectralFX™ Technology, led to BD FACSDiscover™ S8 Cell Sorter, the first real-time imaging and spectral flow cytometer. Expanding on these innovations, BD Biosciences is poised to launch its next technological breakthrough: BD FACSDiscover™ A8 Cell Analyzer, the world’s first spectral cell analyzer with real-time imaging capabilities. There was no better place than the prestigious Flow Cytometry Core Facility at the Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center to premiere the system.
The Flow Cytometry Core Facility at the Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center is renowned for its advanced instrumentation capabilities and for its excellent technical and scientific expertise in multi-dimensional flow cytometry and cell sorting. A striking feature of this facility is its commitment to host state-of-the-art instrumentation and its openness to adopt newly emerging technologies. In doing so, it has been able to improve the quality and scope of research at MSK while also training scientists around the world through its coveted training programs. The MSK team has been using the BD FACSDiscover™ S8 Cell Sorter since last summer and has had much success in utilizing it to achieve MSK’s various research goals. Therefore, it was no wonder that when the technological power of this instrument was expanded in the new BD FACSDiscover™ A8 Cell Analyzer, BD Biosciences scientists entrusted this team in the evaluation of the new system’s features and capabilities. In alignment with its reputation, the MSK team was happy to test the new instrument and explore its usage in new research applications. When it was ready to demonstrate what it could accomplish with the BD FACSDiscover™ A8 Cell Analyzer, Dr. Rui Gardner, Director of the MSK Flow Cytometry Core Facility, invited key scientists from MSK to draw their attention to it.
A Felicitous Ribbon Cutting Ceremony and a Captive Audience
Steve Conly, the BD Biosciences Worldwide President and Dr. Gardner, along with the team of enthusiastic participants from both sides, inaugurated the prelaunch ceremony. The high expectations associated with the release of this new cell analyzer were signified by the kind of audience the ceremony attracted. Dr. Alexander Rudensky, the Chair of MSK’s Immunology Program; Dr. Andreas Schietinger, the Chair of Flow Core Facility Oversight Committee; and Dr. Robert Benezra, the Deputy Director for Core Technologies, were all in attendance and were excited to see the new data that the MSK team generated using the BD FACSDiscover™ A8 Cell Analyzer.
The MSK team demonstrated how the BD SpectralFX™ Technology integrates within the BD FACSDiscover™ A8 Cell Analyzer enabling high-parameter spectral workflows that expand panel size and increase flexibility. The system captures the emission spectrum of each fluorophore and resolves highly similar emission profiles, providing the capacity to run panels with up to 50 colors. The also showcased the system-aware unmixing algorithm, which helps to balance spectral resolution and sensitivity, as well as the next-generation setup and quality control (QC) for automated control of detector setup. The latter presents a major advantage for maintaining consistency and performance in flow cytometry workflows, especially in core labs that perform this task manually on an everyday basis.
The team also addressed how the BD FACSDiscover™ A8 Cell Analyzer eliminates the need for using different instruments for imaging cells and for analyzing them. The system incorporates BD CellView™ Image Technology that provides spatial and morphological insights through real-time imaging without using a separate arrangement for acquiring imaging data, which typically has been the case in most labs. It enables real-time visual inspection of flow events, comprehensive cell characterization, and incorporates new parameters to analyze cellular experiments such as cell morphology, signal diffusivity, and antigen co-localization to acquire precise cellular insights.
The MSK Flow Cytometry Core Facility team was excited to continue to be part of the collaboration with BD Biosciences, which Dr. Gardner clearly expressed during the first pre-launch installation of the FACS Discover™ A8 Cell Analyzer unit in the United States.
“The FACSDiscover A8 Analyzer, with its innovative combination of spectral flow cytometry and real-time single-cell imaging, offers unprecedented capabilities. Our collaboration will allow us to thoroughly evaluate the performance of this pre-launch instrument and explore its potential to drive new discoveries. By integrating this advanced tool into our workflows, we aim to uncover insights that were previously unattainable and help advance scientific knowledge”, said Dr. Gardner in his opening address.
International Workshop on Spectral Flow Cytometry Panel Design
On the heels of the ribbon cutting ceremony, the MSK team, with the support of thought leaders in flow cytometry, organized a 5-day international workshop on high-parameter spectral flow cytometry panel design. Spectral flow cytometry affords tremendous power for high-parameter cell analysis. By enabling use of the entire spectrum of a fluorochrome’s emission for analysis through an array of expanded detector options, spectral flow cytometry opens a plethora of new avenues for interrogating immune cell types and their functions. The permutations and combinations of fluorochromes and detectors that can be incorporated in a spectral flow cytometry panel design is immense. But, as any scientist who is involved in these experiments would agree, designing a spectral flow cytometry panel is no small feat, which explains why it was chosen as the topic of the international workshop this year.
The main focus of the workshop was to train scientists build high-parameter spectral panels, follow best practices, instrument setup, quality control, and experimental setup for spectral flow cytometers. Additionally, there were training sessions onadvanced tools and pipelines for analyzing high-dimensional flow cytometry data. The workshop was attended by 20 participants, including researchers from MSK as well as from labs around the world. Split into five groups, the focused participants learned to design complex spectral flow cytometry panels, conducted their experiments using sophisticated flow cytometers, and analyzed their results. They were guided by experts in the field, including Dr. Timothy Crawford, Dr. Peter Mage, and Dr. John Quinn from BD Biosciences. The workshop participants were also able to design and run a 20-color panel on a pilot BD FACSDiscover™ A8 Cell Analyzer. They were pleasantly surprised and happy to see the apparently “youngest” instrument exhibiting a performance on par with all the other established spectral analyzers used in the workshop!
The sessions also included special lectures the BD Biosciences team, where Dr. Crawford and Dr. Mage shared their experiences on developing exciting new technologies the BD SpectralFX™ Technology and the BD CellView™ Image Technology. The workshop successfully left participants with a wealth of knowledge and excitement about new capabilities that they could have access to for tackling the myriad of challenges they faced.
Where Do We Go from Here?
As the MSK Flow Cytometry Core Facility team continues to experiment with BD FACSDiscover™ A8, we can’t wait to see what groundbreaking discoveries they will make using the new capabilities offered by this system. As for the BD Biosciences team, we are all revved up after the events and are looking forward to making the star of the premiere event, the BD FACSDiscover™ A8 Cell Analyzer, available to researchers. The world’s first spectral cell analyzer with real-time imaging is real and coming soon!
If you would like to be part of this journey and experience the capabilities of the BD FACSDiscover™ A8 Cell Analyzer, you can do that by reaching out to us.
Learn more about the FACSDiscover™ A8 Cell Analyzer and contact us!
