Adrian Liston
@labliston.bsky.social
Professor of Pathology at the University of Cambridge. Equalities Fellow, Welfare Tutor and Director-of-Studies at St Catharine's College. Educator, scientist, immunologist, daddy. Founder and CSO of Aila Biotech Ltd.
It’s dishwashing liquid ;)
November 6, 2025 at 10:02 AM
It’s dishwashing liquid ;)
That would be amazing!
November 5, 2025 at 3:11 PM
That would be amazing!
Yes, I agree completely! Technical advances need experience. It isn't a coincidence that the first author here is a permanent staff scientist with a decade in the lab.
Different lab structures have different strengths and weaknesses. This is the bonus for large and stable labs :)
Different lab structures have different strengths and weaknesses. This is the bonus for large and stable labs :)
November 3, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Yes, I agree completely! Technical advances need experience. It isn't a coincidence that the first author here is a permanent staff scientist with a decade in the lab.
Different lab structures have different strengths and weaknesses. This is the bonus for large and stable labs :)
Different lab structures have different strengths and weaknesses. This is the bonus for large and stable labs :)
With so many new methods buried in results-focused papers, this thread is my encouragement to groups to also publish separate protocols papers! You'll be pleasantly surprised at the engagement these papers get, and most importantly they provide real impact aiding others in their science.
October 31, 2025 at 9:09 AM
With so many new methods buried in results-focused papers, this thread is my encouragement to groups to also publish separate protocols papers! You'll be pleasantly surprised at the engagement these papers get, and most importantly they provide real impact aiding others in their science.
Our cross entropy test was probably the first statistical test allowing the comparison of tSNE/UMAPs. It helped groups understand that dimensionality reduction can be used for more than simply visualisation.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
A cross entropy test allows quantitative statistical comparison of t-SNE and UMAP representations
Dimensionality-reduction tools such as t-SNE and UMAP allow visualizations of single-cell
datasets. Roca et al. develop and validate the cross entropy test for robust comparison
of dimensionality-redu...
www.cell.com
October 31, 2025 at 9:09 AM
Our cross entropy test was probably the first statistical test allowing the comparison of tSNE/UMAPs. It helped groups understand that dimensionality reduction can be used for more than simply visualisation.
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
You might not know about #AutoSpill, but if you do flow cytometry you've almost certainly used it. This improvement to compensation calculation has been integrated into all major flow cytometry programs, such as FlowJo, reducing error for the whole community
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
AutoSpill is a principled framework that simplifies the analysis of multichromatic flow cytometry data - Nature Communications
Flow cytometry allows the simultaneous quantification of many markers in and on a cell, but the analysis of such data is complicated. Here, the authors propose AutoSpill, a framework that facilitates ...
www.nature.com
October 31, 2025 at 9:09 AM
You might not know about #AutoSpill, but if you do flow cytometry you've almost certainly used it. This improvement to compensation calculation has been integrated into all major flow cytometry programs, such as FlowJo, reducing error for the whole community
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This paper did the hard-yards of testing various different blocking and signal preservation protocols. For any flow cytometry researchers a thorough read could save months of troubleshooting.
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Optimization of the Blocking and Signal Preservation Protocol in High‐Parameter Flow Cytometry
High quality input data is the key to successful interpretation of any scientific assay. In flow cytometry, fluorescently-conjugated antibodies allow us to simultaneously measure an incredible range ...
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 31, 2025 at 9:09 AM
This paper did the hard-yards of testing various different blocking and signal preservation protocols. For any flow cytometry researchers a thorough read could save months of troubleshooting.
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Our "Fairy dishwashing" protocol is just out, but is already gaining traction as a cheap and effective way to stain for both transcription factors and cytokines. Work that needed reporter strains can now rapidly be done via flow.
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Introducing the Dish Soap Protocol: A Unified Approach for Multi‐Modal Intracellular Staining
Recent advances in dyes and cytometers have seen an exponential increase in the ability to perform multidimensional flow cytometry. As we increase our capacity to extract information from cells, the ...
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 31, 2025 at 9:09 AM
Our "Fairy dishwashing" protocol is just out, but is already gaining traction as a cheap and effective way to stain for both transcription factors and cytokines. Work that needed reporter strains can now rapidly be done via flow.
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
For example, our overnight staining protocol might not get cited often, but it has nearly 40,000 downloads. It reduced our antibody costs nearly 100-fold. That is a lot of funding available for extra research!
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Do more with Less: Improving High Parameter Cytometry Through Overnight Staining
Recent advances in flow cytometry have allowed high-dimensional characterization of biological phenomena, enabling breakthroughs in a multitude of fields. Despite the appreciation of the unique prope....
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 31, 2025 at 9:09 AM
For example, our overnight staining protocol might not get cited often, but it has nearly 40,000 downloads. It reduced our antibody costs nearly 100-fold. That is a lot of funding available for extra research!
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Now I need to work “kraken” into our paper! 🙏
October 30, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Now I need to work “kraken” into our paper! 🙏
Better. There are some aspects of the pipeline that won’t work without single colour cell controls, but you should still see improvements. Eg having an unstained cellular control still lets you do per-cell autofluorescence subtraction.
October 30, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Better. There are some aspects of the pipeline that won’t work without single colour cell controls, but you should still see improvements. Eg having an unstained cellular control still lets you do per-cell autofluorescence subtraction.
Not yet, no. Our last software update (AutoSpill) was integrated into most flow cytometry platforms, so hopefully this one is too. Big incentive to capture the non-coding audience!
October 29, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Not yet, no. Our last software update (AutoSpill) was integrated into most flow cytometry platforms, so hopefully this one is too. Big incentive to capture the non-coding audience!