About
The Flow Cytometry Section was formed in 1988. The Committee is made up from a cross section of cytometrists representing research, clinical and industrial aspects of flow cytometry. Collectively, the Committee acts as a point of contact for information and advice. We try to represent a cross-section of disciplines and support our members with a series of educational and scientific meetings throughout the year (meetings, courses and workshops). We are also recognised by the International Society for the Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC) as an ‘Associated Society’.
The Committee oversees the running of several well-established meetings.
- An annual week-long course aimed at beginners and those who want to expand their knowledge of flow cytometry. It comprises a two-day introduction to flow cytometry and then three days on either research or clinical applications.
- The Flow Facilities Meeting which is held annually during the first working week of the year.
- FlowcytometryUK, which alternates annually between a one-day meeting and a three-day meeting.
In addition, several one-day focussed meetings are organised when appropriate and in the past these have been on data analysis, cell sorting, and DNA analysis by flow cytometryThese can also be run in collaboration with other Societies e.g. the British Society of Immunology and can be scientific or training courses.
The Flow Cytometry medal is awarded once every two years at the flowcytometryUK meeting, and the aim of this is to celebrate outstanding work applying cytometric techniques in the field of immunology or cell biology. The medal is open to applicants worldwide who have been engaged in independent research for less than 10 years, or are in a tenured academic, or clinical, support role.
Anyone working in the field of cytometry is welcome to come forward with ideas for courses and you are encouraged to contact the section Committee if you would like to help.
The RMS is committed to being a welcoming, inclusive Society and encourages diversity across all activities and in the membership of our committees and groups.
If you are interested in joining any of the committees in the future, please visit our Join a Committee page.
RMS Section Awards
Launched in 2014, the Section Awards (formerly known as the Medal Series) recognise those who have made significant contributions to the field of microscopy. The RMS Section Awards celebrate outstanding scientific achievements across all areas of microscopy and flow cytometry with each RMS Science Section able to select a winner for their own award.
Find out more
Committee
Yanping Guo
Yanping is the manager of the Flow Cytometry Translational Technology Platform at UCL Cancer Institute. After receiving her DPhil degree from Oxford University, Yanping did her postdoc research at UCL focusing on the hematopoietic stem cells and leukaemia. She enjoys helping users with training, experimental design and data analysis for flow cytometry in different disciplines.
She is also has a keen interest in the teaching and mentoring of younger scientists.
Barry Moran
Barry runs the Flow Cytometry Facility within the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. This is the busiest flow core in Ireland, with state of the art instrumentation. Barry is very active in the flow community and is a director (1 of 2) of the Cytometry Society of Ireland. He is particularly interested in applying high parameter cytometry to decipher autoimmune disease. He attained his PhD from Trinity College Dublin (Immunology) and MSc from the University of Glasgow (Medical Genetics).
Jennifer Cassels
Jen runs the flow cytometry facility for the school of cancer sciences at the University of Glasgow, the facility has around 175 users, which are spread across three institutes, The Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research centre, the Wolfson Whol Cancer Research Cantre and the CRUK Scotland Institute. Finding flow in 2010, she was the flow cytometry specialist for The Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research centre (POG-LRC) until 2023 when the three separate facilities became one. Her beginnings at POG-LRC have given her a strong expertise in hematopoietic stem cells and leukaemia’s and also the processing and handling of these patient samples. Leukaemia aside, she loves to train and develop her users, giving them the flow skills they require when they fly the nest.
Beverley Goward
Bev first encountered flow cytometry during her post-graduate research at Imperial College London, investigating immunological causes of unexplained recurrent miscarriage. For the past 18 years she has worked as a technical sales specialist in flow cytometry for several companies, including Miltenyi Biotec, ThermoFisher Scientific and BD, before joining Sony Biotechnology in 2023. Her commitment to the scientific community extends beyond commercial support, with a strong focus on providing education and training for all aspects of flow cytometry.
Christopher Hall
Christopher Hall is a highly regarded flow cytometry specialist currently working at the University of Edinburgh's School of Biology. He has previously managed or worked at flow cytometry facilities at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, EMBL:Rome, and the Babraham Institute.
With expertise in cell sorting, spectral flow cytometry, and data analysis, Christopher supports cutting-edge immunological and cellular research. His research contributions include analyzing patient samples for the Rasolvir clinical trial, studying T-cell activation in arthritis, and publishing on advanced cytometric workflows.
Heather Harris
Heather runs the Imaging and Cytometry Labs within the Pathobiology & Population Sciences Department at the Royal Veterinary College which includes flow cytometers and an inverted fluorescent microscope. Heather has worked for more than 15 years in flow cytometry labs in both biopharma industry and now in the veterinary field. Research is currently focused on parasite enrichment by sorting, development of phenotyping clinical cases from companion animal hospital, expression of specific immune markers from multiple species, expression of proteins in potential yeast vaccines and much more. Heather has other laboratory management duties and supports training and use of other specialised equipment, such as Organ-on-Chip technologies.
Philip Hobson
Phil Hobson is the Deputy Manager of the Flow Cytometry Science Technology Platform at the Francis Crick Institute, London. Following a PhD in Immunology and post doctoral positions at both Imperial College London and Kings College London, he joined the flow facility at the National Institute of Medical Research during the merger to form the Francis Crick Institute. Within the Crick he has developed interests in high containment sorting and health and safety. Due to his responsibilities with the mass cytometry suite, he is interested in high dimensional data analysis of both flow cytometry and imaging data sets.
Christopher Law
Christopher is the Supervisor who operates and oversees Cell Sorting & Mass Cytometry for the University of Liverpool. He has over twenty years experiences specializing flow/mass cytometry, its applications relevant research niches. Managing the flow core, Chris represents Liverpool area, provides internal investigators and external collaborators with technical expertise and scientific consultations.
Applying his previous postdocs and the following lecturing experiences, Chris currently engages with education activities, established and teach a rolling cytometry course, promoting knowledge- / expertise- transfer for next generation competent cytometrists.
Radhika Patel
Radhika currently holds the position of Senior Scientist at the AstraZeneca Flow Cytometry Centre of Excellence in Cambridge. She heads the AstraZeneca Internal Global Flow Cytometry Training Program and led the transition to the new AstraZeneca Discovery Centre building. Radhika is interested in implementing and utilizing automated processes in the lab, and she provides support for multiple projects, including immunophenotyping for drug target identification and validation screens. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, she managed the flow cytometry hub for the National Lung and Heart Institute which is part of Imperial College London. Additionally, during her tenure in London, she served as Treasurer for the London Cytometry Club.
Steven Servin Gonzalez
Sean Tattan
Sean obtained his PhD from the University of East Anglia, where he investigated tissue engineering approaches to developing and optimising in vitro models of the human colon. He is currently a Lecturer in Cell Biology and Immunology at the University of East Anglia, where his research focuses on human disease modelling, pharmacology, and the application of advanced imaging and quantitative computational approaches to investigate cellular behaviour, migration, and signalling.
Pruntha Yoganathan
Pruntha is a Specialist Biomedical Scientist in the Flow Cytometry Laboratory at Guy’s Hospital, specialising in diagnostic immunophenotyping for haematological malignancies, including leukaemia and lymphoma. She previously worked in a specialist flow cytometry laboratory at the Royal Marsden Hospital, where she gained extensive experience in integrated diagnostic care. Pruntha supports service delivery and quality assurance within the clinical flow cytometry team. She is passionate about raising awareness of the critical role flow cytometry plays in healthcare to the wider community and is committed to promoting collaboration between the clinical and research fields.
Raif Yucel
Dr Raif Yuecel is Director of the Centre for Life Sciences Technologies and Research Lead of the Exeter Centre for Cytomics at the University of Exeter. He has worked in cytometry for over 25 years across academia, industry, commercial, CRO-facing and shared research facility environments. His expertise spans advanced flow cytometry, spectral and imaging cytometry, cell sorting, small-particle analysis, microbiology, environmental and aquatic cytometry, single-cell approaches and high-dimensional data analysis. At Exeter, he leads integrated technology platforms across cytomics, bioimaging, sequencing and mass spectrometry, with a strong focus on quality, training, cross-technology workflows and external partnerships. He is also active in community-building through GW4 Cytomics and international cytometry activities (ISAC), with particular interest in strengthening non-traditional cytometry applications and bridging cytometry with bioinformatics, machine learning and AI.
AGM
The 2026 Annual General Meeting of the Flow Cytometry Section of the Royal Microscopical Society, will take place on Wednesday 30 September 2026 at 12:00pm during the Microscopy: Advances, Innovation, Impact 2026 Meeting.