Assay Design and Standardization: What Can Researchers Learn From Clinical and Vice Versa?

Since 2022, the Indonesian Government has expanded the provision of leukemia and lymphoma immunophenotyping testing across the country from 9 sites to a projected 35 sites by 2025 to cover all the regional provincial hospitals. This increase in the number of labs doing this test required education of lab staff and development of assay standardization. To aid the education process, flow cytometry workshops have been conducted in Indonesia with the collaboration with the ISAC Live Education Task Force. These workshops included lectures and labs which covered the principles of flow cytometry, immunofluorescence techniques for flow cytometry, and its use in immunophenotyping of haematological malignancies. Development of standardized assays also plays a crucial role to be able to scale-up the capacity and provision of clinical services. A simplified 3-tube-8-color panel was designed, its performance verified, and then implemented in most of the testing sites after specialized training. In this scientific tutorial we will discuss how this was done and where we are in this process. We would also like to hear from any others who have undertaken a similar activity.

CMLE Credit: 1.0