Steps To Become a SSFF User

To use the FACS Facility, you will need to do the following:

Obtain a SUNetID: The Sunet ID is required for the Facility data management system. For members of the Stanford community, this can be done online. For non-Stanford users, you will need to obtain a sponsored ID. To do this, email the registration form below to SFF Administrator.

Registration: Fill out the Registration form. If your PI has a digital signature, or you scan the form into a computer and you are a Stanford affiliate you may email the form to us. Otherwise use the FAX number on the form, or bring it by the Facility.

On-Line Tutorials: The following on-line tutorials prepared by Invitrogen and BD are useful introductions to flow cytometry and should be looked at before registering for New User Orientation.

Invitogen Tutorials:Flashy introduction to flow cytometry and good overview of fluorescence

http://www.invitrogen.com/site/us/en/home/support/Tutorials.html

BD Tutorials: Introductory flow cytometry course and excellent training for the DiVa software

http://www.bdbiosciences.com/support/training/self_paced.jsp

New User Orientation: New User Orientation classes are held on Mondays and Wednesdays 8:00-9:20 AM. The class is limited to 3 participants who have completed New User Registration and have a Facility user account. There is no charge for attending New User Orientation. To signup for New User Orientation, email Facility Training Instructor Gina Jager jager@stanford.edu prior to noon on Thursday to schedule for the next available Monday or Wednesday (please no lab-group emails). If you do not show up for scheduled New User Orientation and later reschedule New User Orientation, you may be charged an hour of operator time.
The Orientation provides a general introduction to the instrumentation in the Facility, as well as a description of the workflow, from Scheduling to Data Analysis. There will also be time to answer your questions  Do not bring samples to Orientation! Samples will not be needed until you schedule an instrument training session or run time with one of the operators.

Decide Instrument to Use, Type of Training, and Experiment Design: If you have a lot of flow cytometry experience, or you can leverage the experience of someone in your lab, then you might be able to make these decisions yourself. But even for a person with experience in another site, it makes sense to have your considerations reviewed by one of the Facility staff. You could start by emailing the Director or the Operations Manager, telling them what you want to accomplish. They will be able to advise you via email, or suggest a brief meeting.

last update: 08/18/09