BD Pharmigen Sponsor Seminar at the Medical Sciences Campus

From left: Janet Ottinger, Dr. Emma Fernández, Kathy McKinnon,
Andrea Coxey, and Michael Robertson

Representatives from BD Biosciences visited the UPR Medical Sciences Campus last April 19-20, 2001. During its visit, the company co-sponsored two activities with the RCMI Program.

The first of these was a roundtable discussion at the RCMI Clinical Research Center in which MSC faculty and students were invited to join Becton Dickinson representatives; Ms. Andrea Coxey, Reagent Sales Consultant; Ms. Susan Udofia, Senior Labware Sales Specialist; Ms. Katherine McKinnon, Technical Applications Specialist; and Mr. Michael Robertson, Instrument Sales Consultant; in order to ask specific questions and to learn about new products and applications in the area of flow cytometry.

Ms. Katherine McKinnon

On the morning of April 20, BD and the RCMI Program organized a special two-presentation flow cytometry seminar. The first presentation, entitled "Flow Cytometry: Techniques and Applications," was presented by Ms. Kathy Mckinnon of BD Pharmingen. Among the topics discussed during the presentation were the Principles of Fluorescence, Principles of Flow Cytometry, and Flow Cytometry Applications, specifically DimerX, Cytokine Flow Cytometry, BrdU Proliferation Analysis, Apoptosis Measurement, and Cytometric Bead Array (CBA).

Ms. Janet Ottinger

Special guest, Ms. Janet Ottinger, Central Laboratory Operations Manager of the HIV Vaccine Trails Network at the Duke University Medical Center, presented the second seminar entitled, "Antigen Specific Intracellular Cytokine Responses Measured by Flow Cytometry." Building on the premise that monitoring T-cells with a single technique may lead to misconceptions regarding the nature of the on-going immune response, Ms. Ottinger discussed two Antigen-specific methodologies known as ICC and ELISPOT. Both of these methodologies allow the detection of single peptide-reactive T-cells directly ex-vivo. More specifically, ICC detects intracellular cytokines following inhibition of cytokine secretion and allows simultaneous phenotypic analysis of sub-populations, while ELISPOT detects cytokine secretion.

The seminar was attended by forty (40) individuals representative of the faculty and students of the UPR Medical Sciences Campus, the Ponce School of Medicine, and the Universidad Central del Caribe. The private sector and the Centers for Disease Control were also represented at the seminar.

Dra. Emma Fernández-Repollet
RCMI Program

Emma Fernández-Repollet,Ph.D.

Program Director

RCMI Program

Room 621-A, 6th. floor

Main Building, Medical Sciences Campus

GPO Box 365067

San Juan, PR 00936-5067

Email: e.fernandez@upr.edu

Voice (787) 763-9401

FAX (787) 758-5206