New Class of Bright, Sharp, Tunable Near-Infrared Fluorophores for Flow Cyto

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Polychromatic flow cytometry [FC] is one of the most powerful analytical techniques routinely used in immunology. Flow cytometry plays a critical role in several growing clinical applications: leukemia and lymphoma immunophenotyping for diagnosis and sub-categorization (now using 8-10 colors); in CD4/CD8 measurement in HIV-positive patients; and in HLA typing for transplantation cross-matching. With the increasing incidence of hematologic malignancies and use of transplantation, the number of FC tests will continue to grow as reliance on the methodology deepens. Increasing the number of fluorophores on a single sample will give clinicians a higher level of accuracy in the diagnosis and management of certain pediatric hematological disorders, where sample size is limited, and even allow for sub-categorization of the leukemia or lymphoma. Further utility of additional fluorophores for these polychromatic panels is for diagnostic samples of small volume such as specimens