NSU Flow Cytometry Core Facility
Kim Kusser manages the Flow Cytometry Core Facility at NSU, which is housed in the Center for Collaborative Research (CCR) and part of NSU’s central research department, Division of Research and Economic Development (DoR).
What role do you play at NSU?
I train and assist researchers in using our flow cytometry equipment to analyze and sort cells. We have two machines: a sorter (BD FACS AriaFusion) and an analyzer (BD Fortessa X-20 SORP).
These machines use lasers to classify cells on up to 20 different parameters, such as cell type, size, and state. Please reach out to me to schedule a consultation and talk through possibilities for enhancing your research projects or developing new ones.
What type of research does this support?
These machines help researchers understand what cells are doing at different time points. For example, what happens when you treat a cell with a drug, or expose it to a disease? Also, if you want to know what part of the life cycle a cell is in, these machines can leverage markers on the cells to determine, for example, whether a cell is dead or alive.
There are many kits available for purchase from companies with instructions to ask various research questions and carry out specific analyses on cells. If a researcher knows how to use a centrifuge and do basic cell counting, they can use most of these kits. As far as running the samples on the cytometer and analyzing the data, while it’s the flow core’s mission to help a researcher become independent, we are also available to run samples and analyze the data as a fee for service.
What was your journey that brought you to NSU?
I grew up in Jensen Beach which is north of West Palm Beach. A few years after high school, I joined the US Air Force, where I served as a Crew Chief on F-16 fighter aircraft in West Germany. After separating from the military, I moved with my husband to his next duty station in Utah where I received my degree in Zoology.
I later moved to Northern New York to work at the Trudeau Institute as a technician in the lab of Dr. Troy Randall where we focused on influenza in the mouse model. While in this lab, I learned many techniques such as flow cytometry, histology, microscopy, animal surgeries, and more.
In 2011 I had the opportunity to return to my home state of Florida to join the Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute (VGTI) in Port Saint Lucie. Unfortunately, VGTI closed its doors in 2015. However, as universal variance would have it, NSU was looking for someone to start a Flow Cytometry core in their brand new science building, the Center for Collaborative Research. I’ve been a content Shark ever since.
What do you enjoy outside your work at NSU?
I like gardening, reading, and playing poker. Not to mention some new pandemic hobbies: keeping a 100-gallon mixed reef aquarium and backyard chickens.