About us

The core FACS facility on St. Mary’s Paddington campus of Imperial College London was created by a Wellcome strategic award that established the Centre for Respiratory Infection in 2009. In 2013 Imperial College incorporated the laboratory as a multi-user core facility and funded the relocation and construction of a custom-built FACS laboratory. The Facility has since received further support from the Medical Research Council (MRC).

This core facility is a resource open to all researchers at Imperial, and external users. Our ability to sort category-2-level cells means the facility has developed great expertise in working with infectious material, such as fresh patient material and infected samples.

Dr Fiona Culley and Professor Peter Openshaw are the academic leads, while the facility is managed by Dr Isabel Correa-Otero - a qualified and experienced flow cytometry specialist who provides a sorting service and technical assistance, and can advise and assist with experimental design and execution.

We provide in-depth on-site user training, and all equipment is fully bookable using an online calendar. The facility promotes its services by offering seminars and workshops, and by personal communication during meetings and laboratory seminars. Our user committee makes recommendations for facility priorities and policy formulation. All equipment in the St. Marys FACS core facility has been networked for user data transfer. Users can have access to various software tools for data analysis including FlowJo and Kaluza.