Frequently asked Questions

1. What Is ExpDesign?
ExpDesign is an "experiment designer" software program to help you create and document your flow cytometry experiment. It helps you select among combinations of products in your catalog, limited by what can run on your instrument, to define your experiment and print a report that serves as communication to your core laboratory operator and become a written record of your experiment. Further, you can use ExpDesign to simplify selecting and online purchasing of the products required to make your experiment work.

2. Do I need to be on the Internet to use the Experiment Design?
No. The Experiment Design application is portable. Once you download and install the application from the www.coulterflow.com website, it becomes a stand alone application. In order to have the latest updates on products, catalog and lasers, we advise that you do connect from time to time and hit the update button to download the latest components.

3. Can I save my data after I configured my settings?
Yes. Aside from being portable your configuration can be saved as a PDF for later printing or included in your report.

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Getting Started
ExpDesign has two main tabs: "Design" to create your experiment, and "Catalog" to show your available products.

Catalog

The "Catalog" tab is a simple list of available products that may be "sorted" by clicking on the column headers to view groups of products by attributes such as target species, cell marker or conjugate, and product line (BY DEFAULT, THIS IS THE LIST OF BECKMAN COULTER PRODUCTS. HOWEVER, YOU CAN DEFINE YOUR OWN PRODUCTS, INCLUDING CUSTOM CONJUGATES THAT YOU MAY CREATE IN YOUR LAB, THAT WILL SIMILARLY BE CONSIDERED FOR USE IN EXPERIMENTS).

Design

Defining an experiment is a simple four-step process, and you can click on each of the "step" buttons at the top of the Design tab: 1. Experiment Description (define experiment title, target species, your contact information, and other relevant notes) 2. Select Markers (select the cell markers from all those available in your catalog, filtered by product regulatory status) 3. Select Reagents (many product combinations may identify your desired cell markers, and this step lets you select the combination of specific products you want to use) 4. Export (generate a worklist to be used in sample preparation or to communicate with the core lab operator, or print a report to be included in your laboratory notebook) The "Experiment Description" step defines experiment attributes including experiment title, date, target species, cell type, and investigator contact information. This information is commonly used on standardized forms to communicate with the core flow lab operator. Further, you can type in notes regarding your experiment that will similarly be included on the final printed (or electronic) report.

Select Markers

The "Select Markers" tab shows all the cell markers that exist in your catalog for the target species selected on the "Experiment Description" tab, and you can further filter the available markers based on regulatory status. Here, you can select the cell markers to be used in the experiment, and a grid will show all the fluorochromes conjugates available for that cell marker (and the count of products with that conjugate). You can view the emission spectral profile for the fluorochromes possible for these markers, and can "click-to-pin" a given cell marker/fluorochrome conjugate if you want to restrict the possible combinations to only those with that conjugate. At the bottom, the number of possible combinations is shown for this collection of cell markers and what exists in your product catalog.

Select Reagents

Select Reagents After you've selected one or more cell markers to be used in your experiment, the "Select Reagents" tab allows you to browse among all the possible combinations of products in your catalog for the cell markers you are using. You can page among these combinations to select the one specific combination that you want to use. You can click on the "spyglass" icon to view product information on the web from the manufacturer's web site, and even add the whole set of products to a web shopping cart by clicking on the "add to cart" button.

Export

After you've selected your cell markers and decided on a specific product combination, the "Export" step allows you to prepare a worklist that may include fluorescent compensation controls (single-color positives as well as fluorescence-minus-one [FMO] controls), a setup tube, and individual tubes for each sample. This report includes information from your "Experiment Description", and may be used as instructions for wet-lab sample preparation, to communicate with your flow lab operator regarding your experiment, or to record in your laboratory notebook. This page also includes the "add to cart" button to purchase this selection of products from the www.coulterflow.com website (similar to the add-to-cart button on the "Select Reagents" step).

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System Requirements

In order to take advantage of this technology, your system must meet or exceed the minimum system requirements.

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Getting Started

Spectrios has a very simple interface: First select your instrument in the combination box, and the set of possible lasers will default to those that are present on that instrument. By default, all lasers are "on", but you can turn off those lasers that are not present on your instrument or will not be used in your experiment.

Spectrios

If your instrument is not available, or if you have a customized configuration, you can leave the instrument type "un-set", at which point you can select among all commonly used laser wavelengths on cytometers in use today. You can now check or un-check the fluorochromes and stains that are commonly used in flow cytometry. Each fluorochrome has an implied "absorption" spectrum at which it can absorb energy at various levels of efficiency, and an implied "emission" spectrum at which the fluorochromes will fluoresce after being excited. The buttons above the list of fluorochromes permit you to turn on/off the display for all the absorption or emission spectra, the selected lasers and filters, and the background colors. The "Save" button allows you to print out or save the image (for example, to include in your laboratory notebook).

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Frequently asked Questions

1. What Is Spectrios?
Spectrios is a utility application that presents spectral information associated with fluorochromes (dyes and stains) that are commonly used in flow cytometry. A particularly useful aspect of Spectrios is that it models the behavior on commonly used flow cytometers, considering typical laser and filter configurations, to show the "signal" of a given parameter in the context of the spectral overlap from other parameters.

2. Do I need to be on the Internet to use the Spectrious?
No. The Spectrios application is portable. Once you download the application from the www.coulterflow.com website, it becomes a stand alone application. In order to have the latest updates on products and lasers, we advise that you do connect from time to time and hit the update button to download the latest components.

3. Can I save my data after I configured my settings?
Yes. Aside from being portable your configuration can be saved as a PDF for later printing or included in your report.

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