Welcome to Biomed Bites, a weekly feature that introduces readers to some of Stanford’s most innovative researchers.
Once upon a time, a researcher named Holden Maecker, PhD, met flow cytometry, a technique used to examine cells by suspending them in fluid and then passing them by an electronic detector.
A match that could only be made in a science lab, Maecker was hooked. Maecker tells the tale in the video above:
Flow cytometry is a great technique for looking at the immune system and it’s also a little bit of an art, which also attracted me. It’s something that not everybody can do perfectly well and I got a little bit good at it and decided it was a fun thing to do and a good way to look at the immune system.
Maecker and flow cytometry haven't parted, yet he's broadened his mastery of a variety of other techniques to study the immune system as the director of Stanford's Human Immune Monitoring Center.
"It's a very interesting position because it allows me to collaberate with a lot of different peopel doing projects that have to do wiht human immune responses -- everything from sleep apnea and wound healing to flu vaccines and HIV infections," Maecker said. "It's amazing the breadth we have here [at Stanford]."
Learn more about Stanford Medicine’s Biomedical Innovation Initiative and about other faculty leaders who are driving biomedical innovation here.
Previously: Knight in lab: In days of yore, postdoc armed with quaint research tools found immunology's Holy Grail, Immunology meets infotech and Stanford Medicine magazine traverses the immune system
