Conference Report
XXXI National Conference of the Italian Society of Cytometry (GIC) October 8–11, 2013, Lucca, Italy THE
XXXI Italian Society of Cytometry (GIC) bi-annual meeting was held in Lucca (Tuscany, Italy) from October 8th to 11th 2013. All abstracts were carefully reviewed by the Scientific Program Committee and have been published here in full and categorized by scientific tracks such as cell cycle and apoptosis; environmental sciences and toxicology, hematology, immunology, methodology-technology, and oncology. The Abstracts accompany this report as online Supporting Information. To date there are over 600 members actively involved in educational programs, promotion of quality controls programs, drafting/validation of guidelines and accreditation, providing information for people involved that actively work in the field of basic and applied cytometry. This year, the Conference has been preceded by a half a day satellite event devoted to the establishment of the “Professional Certification GIC Register” which will be committed to test, train, certify, and monitor the professional levels of the “Italian Cytometrists” under the responsibility of GIC. At present more than 50 members have applied for enrollment in the formative training structure. After the series of “dedicated seminars” the attendees had the opportunity to discuss with the “Entry Committee” the consistency of the basic requirements they have declared in a preliminary “entry form.” Among all the CV items applicants should have a minimum of three years practical expertise in the field. Anyone passing this entry level will be examined by a formal “Examination Committee” that formally assigns the title of “Qualified Cytometrist.” This new GIC initiative had been very much appreciated by the members. Regarding the scientific program, this year the Scientific Committee selected 31 abstracts for oral presentation among those submitted (110). Plenary sessions included 9 invited lectures focused on the contribution of cytometry in different
application fields, highlighting the interdisciplinary profile of GIC. The opening lecture was given by Prof. Dario Campana (University of Singapore) and was focused on how flow cytometry can guide treatment decisions in acute leukemia. This outstanding talk offered a rational and fascinating overview on the role of flow cytometry in the diagnosis and clinical management of acute leukemias including the future perspectives of monitoring the patient’s individual response to therapy in modern clinical trials. Each parallel session, offered along three days, was tailored on the traditional topics such as immunology, oncology, hematology, methodology, and environmental sciences with cytometry as the common denominator. Several invited and selected lectures were given to discuss more emerging and promising aspects of flow cytometry. Again in the “core” of the Society activities a special session had been programmed for reports of ongoing GIC Projects: a. “Professional Qualification”: R. De Vita summarized the strategic importance in Italy (as everywhere in the world) to apply a “formal-serious-system” to take care and guarantee the high Professional level of people (Beginners as well as Seniors) involved in the area of analytical cytometry especially those having clinical impacts. The “nationalgovernance” should have in mind the patients’ care and the scientific society will have a crucial role in these initiatives. b. “The role of Flow Cytometry in the immunophenotyping of Acute Leukemia.” G. Gaipa delivered extensive details of what the board of this Project did in the recent past and what the enrolled “Expert Committee” is doing in the evaluation of the selected literature, in order to define future steps of the activity, which is the real impact of Flow Cytometry in this very important and promising area of this technology application.
Supporting Information for this Conference Report is the Italian Cytometry Society (GIC) 2013 Abstracts, which can be found in the online version of this article. To cite an abstract in Supporting Information, please use this format: Author names. Abstract title. Cytometry A 2013; 83A: DOI: 10.1002/ cyto.a.22412; Supporting Information, Italian Cytometry Society 2013 Abstracts. Published online in WileyOnlineLibrary (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/cyto.a.22412 C 2013 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry V
Cytometry Part A 83A: 1124 1125, 2013
Conference Report c. “Standardization of a Flow Cytometry approach for the evaluation of Endothelial Circulating cells and their progenitors.” M. Della Porta reported the activities of the group of labs (spread around northern Italy) that are practically involved in the analyses of reference samples prepared in Pavia and rapidly sent to the participants. The very ambitious Original Design involved a very large number of markers and resulted in interlaboratory CVs of the preliminary samples. In a successive step and thanks to the “analytical-instrumental-setting” pre-defined by the Committee, the actual output of the trial is going to be greatly improved. The support of the companies (Beckman Coulter and Miltenyi Biotec) has been extensively acknowledged while the cost of the Project was out of the financial possibility of the GIC Society. d. “Quality assessment of the cytometric Laboratory.” R. Chianese reported a summary of the activity she has devoted to; first to introduction and then among the members of the Society, the concept of “Quality” in the cytometry labs and therefore the way to improve and maintain the minimum level. The preliminary phase of this initiative has enrolled only few labs but thanks to the capillary sensibilization action (carried out with the support of the GIC secretary office), the situation has been significantly improved and there is now a large group of users all around Italy who are interested in training for the quality up-grade. Very important will be the forecast interactions between this Project and the one dealing with
Cytometry Part A 83A: 1124 1125, 2013
“Professional Qualification,” while the “Quality items” will be certainly one of the milestones to be upgraded in the professional culture of the next new generation of cytometrists. The Conference had also been characterized by two special symposiums (topics were “Mimimal residual disease” and “Circulating tumor cells”), in which selected experts from the main Italian Societies in the fields of Hematology and Oncology brought their top contributors. Poster session included 79 contributions and a special committee selected 2 Poster award winners in each category. A substantial contribution has been provided by the principal companies in the field which were located in a large exhibition area inside the conference center. The President’s conclusive remarks included the great satisfaction for the high scientific level of all the sessions with particular reference to the “Posters” which were definitively established as the most common way to introduce novel data and discoveries in science. President G. Gaipa Past President F. Lanza Edited by R. De Vita and G. Mazzini
1125
XXXI National Conference of the Italian Society of Cytometry (GIC) October 8–11, 2013, Lucca, Italy THE
XXXI Italian Society of Cytometry (GIC) bi-annual meeting was held in Lucca (Tuscany, Italy) from October 8th to 11th 2013. All abstracts were carefully reviewed by the Scientific Program Committee and have been published here in full and categorized by scientific tracks such as cell cycle and apoptosis; environmental sciences and toxicology, hematology, immunology, methodology-technology, and oncology. The Abstracts accompany this report as online Supporting Information. To date there are over 600 members actively involved in educational programs, promotion of quality controls programs, drafting/validation of guidelines and accreditation, providing information for people involved that actively work in the field of basic and applied cytometry. This year, the Conference has been preceded by a half a day satellite event devoted to the establishment of the “Professional Certification GIC Register” which will be committed to test, train, certify, and monitor the professional levels of the “Italian Cytometrists” under the responsibility of GIC. At present more than 50 members have applied for enrollment in the formative training structure. After the series of “dedicated seminars” the attendees had the opportunity to discuss with the “Entry Committee” the consistency of the basic requirements they have declared in a preliminary “entry form.” Among all the CV items applicants should have a minimum of three years practical expertise in the field. Anyone passing this entry level will be examined by a formal “Examination Committee” that formally assigns the title of “Qualified Cytometrist.” This new GIC initiative had been very much appreciated by the members. Regarding the scientific program, this year the Scientific Committee selected 31 abstracts for oral presentation among those submitted (110). Plenary sessions included 9 invited lectures focused on the contribution of cytometry in different
application fields, highlighting the interdisciplinary profile of GIC. The opening lecture was given by Prof. Dario Campana (University of Singapore) and was focused on how flow cytometry can guide treatment decisions in acute leukemia. This outstanding talk offered a rational and fascinating overview on the role of flow cytometry in the diagnosis and clinical management of acute leukemias including the future perspectives of monitoring the patient’s individual response to therapy in modern clinical trials. Each parallel session, offered along three days, was tailored on the traditional topics such as immunology, oncology, hematology, methodology, and environmental sciences with cytometry as the common denominator. Several invited and selected lectures were given to discuss more emerging and promising aspects of flow cytometry. Again in the “core” of the Society activities a special session had been programmed for reports of ongoing GIC Projects: a. “Professional Qualification”: R. De Vita summarized the strategic importance in Italy (as everywhere in the world) to apply a “formal-serious-system” to take care and guarantee the high Professional level of people (Beginners as well as Seniors) involved in the area of analytical cytometry especially those having clinical impacts. The “nationalgovernance” should have in mind the patients’ care and the scientific society will have a crucial role in these initiatives. b. “The role of Flow Cytometry in the immunophenotyping of Acute Leukemia.” G. Gaipa delivered extensive details of what the board of this Project did in the recent past and what the enrolled “Expert Committee” is doing in the evaluation of the selected literature, in order to define future steps of the activity, which is the real impact of Flow Cytometry in this very important and promising area of this technology application.
Supporting Information for this Conference Report is the Italian Cytometry Society (GIC) 2013 Abstracts, which can be found in the online version of this article. To cite an abstract in Supporting Information, please use this format: Author names. Abstract title. Cytometry A 2013; 83A: DOI: 10.1002/ cyto.a.22412; Supporting Information, Italian Cytometry Society 2013 Abstracts. Published online in WileyOnlineLibrary (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/cyto.a.22412 C 2013 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry V
Cytometry Part A 83A: 1124 1125, 2013
Conference Report c. “Standardization of a Flow Cytometry approach for the evaluation of Endothelial Circulating cells and their progenitors.” M. Della Porta reported the activities of the group of labs (spread around northern Italy) that are practically involved in the analyses of reference samples prepared in Pavia and rapidly sent to the participants. The very ambitious Original Design involved a very large number of markers and resulted in interlaboratory CVs of the preliminary samples. In a successive step and thanks to the “analytical-instrumental-setting” pre-defined by the Committee, the actual output of the trial is going to be greatly improved. The support of the companies (Beckman Coulter and Miltenyi Biotec) has been extensively acknowledged while the cost of the Project was out of the financial possibility of the GIC Society. d. “Quality assessment of the cytometric Laboratory.” R. Chianese reported a summary of the activity she has devoted to; first to introduction and then among the members of the Society, the concept of “Quality” in the cytometry labs and therefore the way to improve and maintain the minimum level. The preliminary phase of this initiative has enrolled only few labs but thanks to the capillary sensibilization action (carried out with the support of the GIC secretary office), the situation has been significantly improved and there is now a large group of users all around Italy who are interested in training for the quality up-grade. Very important will be the forecast interactions between this Project and the one dealing with
Cytometry Part A 83A: 1124 1125, 2013
“Professional Qualification,” while the “Quality items” will be certainly one of the milestones to be upgraded in the professional culture of the next new generation of cytometrists. The Conference had also been characterized by two special symposiums (topics were “Mimimal residual disease” and “Circulating tumor cells”), in which selected experts from the main Italian Societies in the fields of Hematology and Oncology brought their top contributors. Poster session included 79 contributions and a special committee selected 2 Poster award winners in each category. A substantial contribution has been provided by the principal companies in the field which were located in a large exhibition area inside the conference center. The President’s conclusive remarks included the great satisfaction for the high scientific level of all the sessions with particular reference to the “Posters” which were definitively established as the most common way to introduce novel data and discoveries in science. President G. Gaipa Past President F. Lanza Edited by R. De Vita and G. Mazzini
1125
