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Dear listers, 
I’ve been following the discussions regarding the quality of imaging on 
CompuCyte’s laser scanning cytometry platform and I’d just like to share my 
thoughts with you. Until recently, I was working in the core imaging and flow 
facility at Amgen Inc. in Southern California. We had both confocal systems 
and several LSC instruments (iCyte, iCys). I’ve been working with the LSC for 
over 8 years now and I believe the image quality ultimately comes down to 
the sample prep. If the sample prep is clean, and the staining is good, there is 
no doubt that you will obtain an image of very high quality (on both 
platforms). Using a 40x objective, with the iCys’s variable stage resolution set 
at 0.5uM (it has a motorized microstep stage), you can obtain incredibly 
sharp, clear images of your samples, whether it be cells or tissue (some people 
have even thought that some of my LSC images were from a confocal 
system!). Clearly, the confocal will give you extra-sharp and clean images 
because you’re looking at a very thin slice through your sample; with 
CompuCyte’s iGeneration instruments, you’re sampling a thicker focal slice of 
your sample, because that is what the instrument is designed to do: to collect 
signal through a wide depth of field in order to accurately quantitate the 
signal. That is why you can do stoichiometric measurements on adherent cells 
like cell cycle analysis on the iCys or iCyte. The great thing about the 
technology is that you can then correlate your cytometric data to its 
corresponding image, instantaneously, without third party software. So in a 
nutshell…. Great high resolution images AND quantitative data in the same 
scan. I am now actually an applications scientist with CompuCyte and I’d be 
happy to answer any further questions, but you don’t have to take my word 
for it, visit www.compucyte.com and www.imagingcytometrycenter.com 
Regards,

Raffi Manoukian


Raffi Manoukian, M.Sc.
Senior Applications Scientist
CompuCyte Corporation
949-573-1895