Dr. Derek Davies

Affiliation : Flow cytometry STP Head, The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK

Title of the Talk/Lab :Basics of Multicolor Flow Cytometry

Derek Davies obtained his BSc in Animal Physiology at the University of Leeds, UK. He started his career in a Pathology Laboratory where he first gained experience in cytometry using a microdensitometer to look at DNA content of cervical cells. This led to a MRC-grant funded position to look at the feasibility of flow cytometry in pre-screening of cervical samples. In 1990 he moved to the Flow Cytometry facility at what was then the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (later the London Research Institute) in London and in 1996 became the Head of that facility. The facility grew from 4 cytometers (2 sorters, 2 analysers) with 2 staff, to having 8 staff looking after 12 cytometers (4 sorters and 8 analysers). In 2015 he oversaw the merger of the London Research Institute Flow Facility with that from the National Institute for Medical Research as they became part of the newly founded Francis Crick Institute. In 2019 his role changed and he now looks after internal and external training in the Institute’s core facilities. His main cytometric experience is in training users to run multicolor panels, DNA and cell cycle analysis and functional studies such as apoptosis.

He has organized many courses for the Royal Microscopical Society, and has long-term collaborations with the University of York and the Babraham Institute in Cambridge. He has taught courses in many countries across the globe including Finland, Croatia, Spain Portugal and the USA. He is also Chair of flowcytometryUK, sits on the Cytometry section of the Royal Microscopical Society and is a former ISAC Councilor.

Lecture: Basics of Multicolor Flow Cytometry:

Selected Literature:

1. Filby A, Perucha, E, Summers H, Rees P, Chana P, Heck S, Lord G, Davies D. An imaging flow cytometric method for measuring cell division history and molecular symmetry during mitosis. Cytometry (2011) 79, 496-506
2. Davies D. Cell separations by flow cytometry Methods Mol Biol (2012) 878, 185-199
3. L Barsky, M Black, M Cochran, BJ Daniel, D Davies, M DeLay, R Gardner, M Gregory, D Kunkel, J Lannigan, J Marvin, R Saloman, C Torres, R Walker. International Society for Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC) flow cytometry shared resource laboratory (SRL) best practices. Cytometry (2016) 89, 1017-1030.
4. T Blasi, H Hennig, H Summers, F Theis, J Cerveira, J Patterson, D Davies, A Filby, A Carpenter, P Rees. Label-free cell cycle analysis for high-throughput imaging flow cytometry, Nature Communications (2016), 7:10256
5. A Cozzariiza et al. Guidelines for the use of flow cytometry and cell sorting in immunological studies, Eur J Immunol (2019) 49, 1457-1973