Determining regions of interest in flow cytometric data

Fluorescence activated cytometry, or flow cytometry is a standard research tool with a wide range of applications. Analysis of flow data currently relies on expert decision-making based on heuristic rules. In this study, we automate the process and test our procedures on a commonly used hematopoietically active drug. The centerpiece of the automated method is common characteristic removal to identify cell populations of interest. The cell populations that are identified undergo statistical analysis to determine if there is a shift in population means, spreads, or enumeration across treatment groups. This information is used to identify populations that are affected by a treatment from those that are not, and make a quantitative characterization of the populations in which changes occur.