Historical Overview (1956-1975)

von Bertalanffy & Bickis - 1956

The metachromatic fluorescence of AO was used to identify and quantitate RNA in tissues and that that normal and malignant cells could be discriminated.

Cytometry Analytic Techniques M.R. Mendelsohn - 1958

Pioneered photometry by the two-wavelength method with the appropriate mathematical manipulation of the transmittances.

Marylou Ingram - 1960's

Identified that radiation caused increase number of binucleated lymphocytes in peripheral blood - she used a scanner to detect these rare cells (1/10000).

Preston - 1964

Cytoanalyzer was designed to identify Ingram's rare cells using a Vidicon based system - digitized images of lymphocytes were produced stained with eosin-methylene azure dye combinations.

Early flow systems

Hallermann et al, Kosenow - 1964

AO staining of leukocytes - was able to use fluorescence (in a flow based system) to select leukocytes from red cells despite a low ratio (1/1000) because they took up lots of AO - also claimed to be able to discriminate between monocytes and PMN

Lou Kamentsky - IBM -1963

LA Kamentsky & CN Liu, Computer-automated design of multifont print recognition logic, IBM J. Research & Development 7, 1963