In this episode, the hosts introduce Karla Moncada, who shares her professional journey from Flowcore management to her current role at KCAS, and unveils her new KCAS video series, Karla’s Corner, aimed at fostering year-round conversations within the flow cytometry community. Karla emphasizes the value of personal connections in scientific collaboration and how her career has blended customer service with cutting-edge science. The main topic of the episode focuses on global harmonization in flow cytometry, particularly in phenotyping myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) across 23 international labs. The discussion highlights challenges such as inconsistent gating strategies, variations in reagent availability, and difficulties standardizing instrumentation and regulatory compliance across geographies. The group explores how differences in equipment setup and panel design can lead to significant inter-lab variability in data. The episode underscores the need for harmonized protocols to achieve reproducibility and reliability in global collaborative studies.

“The Conversational Flow” an official podcast of KCAS Bio, and focuses on the more niche topic of Flow Cytometry and its role within the greater pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical and bioanalytical industries. Every month, KCAS Bio will bring you another 60 minutes (or so) of friendly banter between our two finest Flow Cytometry experts as they chat over coffee and discuss what they’ve learned about the world of Flow Cytometry the past couple of weeks. “The Conversational Flow” is brought to you by KCAS Bio.

KCAS Bio is a progressive growing contract research organization of well over 250 talented and dedicated individuals with growing operations in Kansas City, Doylestown, PA, and Lyon, France, where we are committed to serving our clients and improving health worldwide. Our experienced scientists provide stand-alone bioanalytical services to the pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, animal health and medical device industries.