Flow Cytometry Trends

Marie-Soleil Piche (00:06):
My name is Marie-Soleil Piche, and I am the Scientific Director of the Immunology Group at the Montreal site. I've been working with the company for 10 years now and I'm an immunologist by background.

Marie-Soleil Piche (00:18):
Flow cytometry is a versatile technique that can be used for multiple, different purposes. It can really help in the drug development process to better characterize some unintended problems that a drug would have on the immune system. But it can also characterize and better understand the exaggerated pharmacology that a drug would have if it's an immunomodulator.

Marie-Soleil Piche (00:43):
It can also help us to understand the mode of action of immunomodulators, to understand also the receptor occupancy of the drug, to get information about target engagement. Characterize in better details the cells that are being modulated, following the exposure to a drug, but also to understand their degree of activation, their functions. Also, to understand some signaling mechanism. And flow cytometry, since all of these assays can be performed using this technology, is really one of the most interesting tool I would cite, that can be added on safety studies.

Marie-Soleil Piche (01:22):
Doing some flow cytometry study early on during the discovery process of your drug is really helpful and will help you to better characterize the assays and the markers that will be needed to be looked at by flow cytometry on your safety assessment program.

Marie-Soleil Piche (01:38):
So knowing your drug, knowing what you're looking for, is really critical for your safety assessment programs so that you can really select the assays that you need. And you're going to get the data that will be useful for you down the road for the submission of your package to the regulatory agencies.