Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD), in collaboration with Amrita Hospital, launched the Amrita-BD Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Clinical Flow Cytometry, a critical technique that has many clinical applications. The state-of-the-art CoE that was launched in Kochi will provide training to researchers and clinicians to enhance their expertise in flow cytometry and focus on frontier areas in biological sciences.

The CoE is equipped with a comprehensive range of flow cytometer instruments like BD FACSAria II cell sorter and BD FACSCanto II Clinical Cell Analyser that will address both current and future needs for research and clinical applications.

Dr. Ullas Mony, Head-Advance Immunohematology and Flow Cytometry Lab, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Center, Kochi, said, “Recently established Centre of Excellence (CoE) in clinical flow cytometry at AIMS Kochi is a classic example of academic-industry collaboration. This facility helps in providing the diagnostic needs of our hospital as well as other hospitals in and around Kochi and also in Kerala. This centre aims to organise CMEs and workshops in clinical Flow Cytometry and also plans to conduct good quality research and thereby standardise novel clinical flow cytometric assays for better patient care. CoE will strengthen our relationship with BD India and I sincerely hope that this centre can serve as a nodal platform for building consensus and developing quality assurance in clinical flow cytometry.”

Added Pavan Mocherla, MD, BD India/South Asia, “At BD, we are driven towards improving our products which can contribute to faster, higher quality and accurate diagnosis and classification of disease states; particularly hematopoietic cancers. Our collaboration with AIMS-Kochi will aim at enhancing the technical expertise required for the clinical domain through training and workshops. Going forward, the Centre of Excellence at AIMS-Kochi will also evaluate and standardise novel and upcoming clinical flow cytometric assays for feasibility, utility and their impact on patient care.”

Murli Sundrani, Business Director, BD Life Sciences said, “Till date, more than 1000 students, researchers and clinical customers have been trained on the science of flow cytometry at BD-JH FACS Academy–Delhi which is our first CoE in India. We are excited to engage more users through knowledge dissemination and detailed application of flow cytometry at institutions of repute such as AIMS, Kochi.”