Flow Cytometry Facility (FCF)

Contact Information

• Dr. Gus A. Wright | FCF Director & Research Scientist
• Email: gwright@cvm.tamu.edu | Tel: 979.458.9859
• Office: VMR Addition 274 | Facility: VMR Addition 257

Hours of Operation

• Monday–Friday | 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. | Training, drop-off, and operator-assisted usage
• 24 hours a day | 7 days a week | 365 days a year | Trained self-service

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Equipment Available

• The instruments’ optical setups are located at: www.fluorofinder.com/tamucvm.
• The Fluorofinder website can also help design panels and has an excellent resources page for education and many other topics.

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Policies & Operations

New FCF Users

• To use the FCF for the first time, contact Dr. Gus Wright at gwright@cvm.tamu.edu to set up a training session, sample drop-off requests, or experimental design meeting.
• New users are required to set up an iLab account if they have never used iLabs before.
• To schedule equipment, a billing account assigned by the PI is required in iLabs. Please register in iLabs for scheduling and billing at: https://tamu.corefacilities.org/service_center/show_external/4682 

Equipment Reservation

• Instruments can be reserved up to 2 weeks in advance and equipment can be reserved in 4-hour blocks at a time, no more than twice per day.
  • If the equipment is needed in longer blocks or multiple 4-hour blocks within a day then the user must check with Dr. Wright. 
• The Moflo Astrios and the Aurora Cell Sorters are now available for training. 
  • Users must schedule training via email with Dr. Wright.
  • Users cannot schedule cell sorting in iLabs until they are trained on how to use the sorter. 
• All other equipment can be scheduled anytime once the user has been properly trained.
• Training sessions can only be scheduled during normal business hours (Monday–Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and must be scheduled via email. 
  • Users may request training via iLabs, but must also email Dr. Wright to request training.
• Training on all equipment will be charged at the “with operator” assisted rates until the user is sufficiently trained to use the equipment independently.

Late Arrivals

• On all instruments, users are charged from the beginning of their reservation time.
  • This means that if you are late, you will be charged for the time between your scheduled start and your actual arrival.
  • If the user is 1 hour late or more for the scheduled appointment with an operator-assisted or drop-off service, the appointment will be canceled, 1 hour of services will be charged, and the samples will not be run!
  • The fees and policies can change at anytime, and users will be notified when these changes occur. 

Cancellation/No-show

• Appointments canceled >24 hours before the scheduled time require no charge.
• Appointments canceled 24–12 hours before the scheduled time will be charged 1 hour of service.
• Appointments canceled less than 12 hours before the scheduled time will be charged 1.5 hours of service.
• “No-shows” will be charged full scheduled time or 2 hours of service, whichever is greater.

Billing Period

• Core users are billed every month by the hours accumulated.

Equipment Failure 

• No fee will be assessed for late cancellations or no-shows during any time when the equipment is unavailable as a result of maintenance or repairs. 
• If the user experiences any problems with the equipment during operation or start-up, the user is responsible for notifying Dr. Wright as soon as possible. 
• PIs will be responsible for the cost of repairs from the damage due to negligence or misuse of the equipment by users in their lab. 
• It is critical that users follow proper standard operating procedures for startup, shutdown, operating and cleaning as detailed in training sessions and in the user manuals.
• Users are responsible for returning equipment to their previous state at the end of their session.
• Failure to comply with these procedures can result in restricted or suspended access to the FCF equipment. 

Data

• Users are responsible for all of their data and data storage.
• Data that is collected on local hard drives of the equipment or on the data analysis workstations should be transferred to user-owned portable hard drives promptly after the session has ended.
• Users should bring a USB hard drive with them to their scheduled session and transfer the data to their hard drive at the end of the session.
• Upon approval by Dr. Wright, the data may be stored for up to 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, the data may be deleted without notice to the user/PI.
• The FCF is not responsible for lost or deleted data after the data has been acquired by the user.
• For full-service runs on the equipment, the user has 3 days to collect their data from the computer that the data was collected on, or the user risks the data being deleted without notice. 
• Do not, under any circumstances, download/upload programs or files onto FCF computers that do not pertain to data files collected in the FCF.
• FCF computers are only to be used for FCF-related activities. 

Experimental Errors/Failures

• There will be no charge for experiments that fail due to errors/failures by the FCF staff or equipment malfunction or failure as long as no usable data is collected.
• If the user chooses to collect the data from experiments that are not up to standard, then the regular charges apply. 

• Errors/failures are defined as failures or mistakes in executing the standard operating procedures that are standard to acquiring quality data.
  • This includes equipment failure, equipment malfunction, dedicated user error in acquiring data, failed QC, etc.
  • Poor sample preparation is not considered an experiment error made by the FCF and will be charged normal rates.
  • Sorter nozzle tip clogs are a result of large clumps of cells clogging the nozzle tip and this will fall under poor sample preparation and the user will be charged for the time to unclog the nozzle tip. 

Biosafety 

• BSL-3, BSL-4, and radioactive material are not allowed in the FCF.
• The FCF is approved for BSL-1 and BSL-2 reagent use.
  • To be able to bring BSL-2 reagents into the FCF, the Flow Cytometry Facility and room number (VMR Addition, Building 1811, Room 257) must be added to the PI’s Texas A&M IBC permit and approved.
  • The investigator is required to send a copy of the approved IBC with the FCF and room listed, BSL-2 organisms used, and copies of all the relevant training certifications to Dr. Wright before bringing BSL-2 samples to the FCF. 

FCF Acknowledgement 

• To acknowledge the FCF in publications and presentations that have utilized the FCF, the following information should be cited where relevant:
  • Type of system used, analysis software used, lasers used, excitation and emission wavelengths used. For the Image Stream, the objective used should be added. Contact Dr. Wright for these details as needed. 
• Acknowledgment of the FCF in publications is greatly appreciated and is necessary to show the facility’s effectiveness.
  • Acknowledgment of the efforts, contributions, and instrument usage of the FCF can be worded as: “Use of the Texas A&M University Flow Cytometry Facility (RRID:SCR_022169) is acknowledged.” 
• If significant intellectual contributions to publications, including figures, data, and methods, are produced by the FCF staff, then co-authorship on the publication should be considered and discussed before publishing the data.
• The facility fees are only for the equipment time used and not for intellectual contribution. 

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FY2025 Fee Schedule

Service Line	TAMUS/Federal Rate	External Academic/Federal Rate	Commercial Rate	Setup/cleanup surcharge
Cell sorting
Moflo Astrios sorting	$60/hr	$80/hr	$120/hr	1hr
Moflo Astrios sorting w/Operator	$90/hr	$110/hr	$150/hr	1hr
Cytek Aurora CS sorting	$65/hr	$90/hr	$130/hr	1hr
Cytek Aurora CS sorting w/Operator	$95/hr	$115/hr	$155/hr	1hr
Flow Cytometry Analysis
Moflo Astrios analysis	$45/hr	$65/hr	$105/hr	30mins
Moflo Astrios analysis w/Operator	$75/hr	$95/hr	$135/hr	30mins
Cytek Aurora CS analysis	$50/hr	$70/hr	$110/hr	30mins
Cytek Aurora CS analysis w/Operator	$80/hr	$100/hr	$140/hr	30mins
Cell Stream Flow cytometer	$45/hr	$65/hr	$105/hr	30mins
Cell Stream Flow cytometer w/Operator	$75/hr	$95/hr	$135/hr	30mins
Cytek Aurora Flow Cytometer	$45/hr	$65/hr	$105/hr	30mins
Cytek Aurora Flow Cytometer w/Operator	$75/hr	$95/hr	$135/hr	30mins
Imaging Flow Cytometry
Image Stream	$60/hr	$80/hr	$120/hr	45 mins
Image Stream w/Operator	$90/hr	$110/hr	$150/hr	45 mins
Data analysis
Data analysis w/Operator	$65/hr	$105/hr	$145/hr	N/A

Additional Services

• Self-service data analysis workstation IDEAS, FlowJo, and FCS Express: Free.
• Self-service data analysis workstation IDEAS AI program: $65/hr.
• Collaborations are available on request.