Unlocking The Power Of Spectral Flow: High Parameter Immunophenotypic Analysis For Preclinical And Clinical Cell Therapy Research

By Gunisha Arora, Medical and Scientific Writer, Scientific Development

Ongoing medical research continues to uncover the intricate cellular networks that underlie human disease. Building on these discoveries, cell-based therapies have emerged as a powerful way to harness a patient’s or donor’s immune cells to fight cancer. Realizing the full potential of these therapies requires the ability to monitor immune function with high precision and depth.

Conventional analytical tools, however, often lack the resolution needed to capture the complexity of immune responses. This limitation can hinder therapeutic development and reduce the ability to anticipate patient outcomes. Consequently, the industry is seeing growing demand for advanced technologies that provide comprehensive immune cell profiling throughout both preclinical and clinical development.

Flow cytometry has long served as a core method for characterizing immune cells, but traditional instruments are typically restricted to analyzing around 10–12 fluorescent markers at once, with a practical ceiling near 28. Signal overlap from fluorochrome emission spectra further complicates data accuracy. Spectral flow cytometry addresses these limitations by recording the entire emission signature of each fluorochrome and applying sophisticated computational algorithms to resolve overlapping signals. This approach significantly expands the number of measurable markers per laser line, allowing much larger and more informative panels.

At Labcorp, spectral flow cytometry is performed using the Cytek® Aurora platform, which supports simultaneous analysis of up to 40 parameters. The system also separates natural cellular autofluorescence from true fluorescent signals, enabling higher resolution, single-cell data. This level of precision is critical for dissecting the dynamic interactions between the immune system and disease. By providing deeper and more accurate immune profiling, Labcorp’s spectral flow cytometry empowers researchers and drug developers to uncover therapeutic targets, evaluate treatment efficacy, and better predict clinical outcomes — ultimately accelerating the progress of cell therapies, particularly in oncology.