Hot off the press: Harmonization of terms and mathematical concepts in flow cytometry

I just did a quick read of a fabulous position paper by Bartek Rajwa and my mentor Mario Roederer. Have a look! Lost in Translation: Harmonizing Terminology and Defining Mathematical Tools for Panel Optimization - Rajwa - Cytometry Part A - Wiley Online Library

Some thoughts:

In short, the thesis is that the community needs to be more exact in the terms that we use when developing panels. Bartek and Mario argue that currently used terms and approaches are mysterious and imprecise. This is an issue I've been wrestling with for some time, because I want to see us (at Talon, in the broader flow community) develop more tools to make panel design accessible and nearly automated.

As I recruit students - particularly comp sci students - to make seemingly simple tools for us, I typically stumble trying to explain the mathematical foundations and rationale. They then go off on their own, pulling information from adjacent and analogous fields, only to find that terminology is not consistent, and they can't connect the dots toward flow cytometry application. We end up on a wild goose chase.

Bartek and Mario do a masterful job sharing new, precise terminology and approaches for panel design. Their presentation is rooted in the language standard across fields, not specific to flow cytometry; this is an absolutely critical advance to growing our field and bringing in fresh minds

My only criticism - and this is not really a criticism; it's a skill issue for me - is that the math is dense and scary. I can imagine Mario and Bartek mocking me now for this admission.

But the plain fact is that translational scientists - who care only that the panel works and reveals clinically relevant biology - are not so interested in the foundational formulas. They simply need 1) a quality peer-reviewed reference for those formulas, 2) a consistent vocabulary to communicate concepts, and 3) a tool that uses those formulas to make new panels.

Bartek and Mario provided #1 and #2, but we eagerly await #3. In the meantime, we can still use the approaches we use currently - understanding their imprecision, communicating the logical, scientific, and mathematical rationale correctly and with the vocabulary Bartek and Mario present. Bartek and Mario provide a system in this paper to finally, FINALLY take some of the art out of panel development. Now, if they could only make every antibody clone give the same percent positive.