Jeffrey (Jeff) Price

Jeffrey H. Price, M.D., Ph.D., has 20 years of experience in image cytometry instrumentation and algorithm research. He earned his M.D. from Loma Linda University in 1985 and his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from U.C. San Diego in 1990, where he also received his postdoctoral training. In 1993 Dr. Price was appointed Assistant Project Scientist and, in 1996, Associate Research Scientist. From 1994 to 2004 Dr. Price directed the NSF-Whitaker Quantitative Imaging & Confocal Microscopy Resource in Bioengineering at UCSD.

In 1999 Dr. Price founded Q3DM Inc, which marketed his research group's high throughput microscopy inventions for cell-image-based screening. Q3DM was purchased by Beckman Coulter Inc in 2003. At Q3DM he first served as Chairman and CEO, and then CSO. In 2004 he co-founded Vala Sciences Inc, which develops and markets software and kits for cell-image-based assays. At Vala, he holds the positions of President and CEO. He was recruited to the position of Associate Professor at The Burnham Institute in 2004, where he is a member of the Signal Transduction and Stem Cells & Regeneration Research Programs. With its collaborators, Dr. Price's lab is focused on automated analytical microscopy research for tissue proteomics, tracking of cell migration and differentiation, and rare cell diagnostics.

Dr. Price has served as an associate editor of Machine Vision and Applications and refereed articles for Photonics Letters (IEEE/LEOS), the Journal of Microscopy, SPIE Optical Engineering and Cytometry. He has served as conference/session chair at the Fifteenth Cytometry Development Workshop, SPIE Photonics West/BIOS (1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002), CHI Intelligent Drug Discovery & Development (2003) and Association for Laboratory Automation, LabFusion 2004.

Dr. Price's contributions to ISAC and the journal Cytometry include the following:

Cytometry Articles Accepted

• F Shen, JH Price, "Toward Complete Laser Ablation of Melanoma Contaminant Cells in a Co-Culture Outgrowth Model via Image Cytometry," Cytometry, Accepted.
• F Shen, L Hodgson, A Rabinovich, O Pertz, K Hahn, JH Price, "Functional Proteometrics for Cell Migration," Cytometry, Accepted.

Cytometry Articles Published

• JH Price, DA Gough, "Comparison of Digital Autofocus Functions for Phase-Contrast and Fluorescence Scanning Microscopy," Cytometry, 16(4): 283 - 297, 1994.
• JH Price, EA Hunter, and DA Gough, "Accuracy of Least Squares Designed Spatial FIR Filters for Segmentation of Images of Fluorescence Stained Cell Nuclei," Cytometry, 25(4): 303 - 316, 1996.
  • A figure from this article was adapted for the 1998 Cytometry Annual Cover.
  • A figure from this article was adapted for the ISAC XX International Congress 20-25 May 2000, Le Corum, Montpellier, France, Brochure Cover.
• S Bajaj, JB Welsh, RC Leif, JH Price, "Ultra-Rare-Event Detection Performance of a Custom Scanning Cytometer on a Model Preparation of Fetal nRBCs," Cytometry, 39:285-294, 2000.

ISAC Meetings

• S Heynen, EA Hunter, JH Price, "Cell-by-cell classification strategies for scanning cytometry," International Society for Analytical Cytology (ISAC) XX International Congress, Montpellier, France, May 2000.
• JH Price, S Heynen, ME Bravo-Zanoguera, "Fully Automated High Resolution Fluorescence Image (Scanning) Cytometry," Cytometry Supplement 9 (Int Soc Analyt Cytol ISAC XIX Int Congress) p. 49, 1998.
• JH Price, S Heynen, M Mancini, T Moran, R Agustin, "Image Cytometry of Subcellular Signals: High Throughput Data Mining of Heterogeneous Cell Populations," Talk, International Society for Analytical Cytology (ISAC) International Congress, Montpellier, France, May 22-27, 2004.
• JH Price, "Fidelity and Speed in High Throughput Microscopy," International Society for Analytical Cytology (ISAC) XXI International Congress, San Diego, CA, May 2002.
• S Heynen, JH Price, "Cell classification for high-throughput microscopy," International Society for Analytical Cytology (ISAC) XXI International Congress, San Diego, CA, May 2002.
• F Shen, JH Price, "Laser Ablation Sorting in High-throughput Microscopy," International Society for Analytical Cytology (ISAC) XXI International Congress, San Diego, CA, May 2002.
• M Farhad, JH Price, "High-throughput Microscopy for Prenatal Genetic Screening Using Fetal Nucleated Erythrocytes," International Society for Analytical Cytology (ISAC) XXI International Congress, San Diego, CA, May 2002.
• R Agustin, JH Price, "Automatic tissue surface tracking for high-speed three-dimensional cytometry," International Society for Analytical Cytology (ISAC) XXI International Congress, San Diego, CA, May 2002.
• S Bajaj, JH Price, "Detection of Fetal Cells in Maternal Blood with Scanning Cytometry," Cytometry Supplement 9 (Int. Soc. Analyt. Cytol. ISAC XIX Int. Congress) p. 123, 1998.
• S Heynen, JH Price, "Evaluation of SNAKES for an Objective Image Segmentation Standard on Cell Nuclei," Cytometry Supplement 9 (Int Soc Analyt Cytol ISAC XIX Int Congress) p. 123, 1998.
• JH Price, S Heynen, ME Bravo-Zanoguera, "Fully Automated High Resolution Fluorescence Image (Scanning) Cytometry," Cytometry Supplement 9 (Int Soc Analyt Cytol ISAC XIX Int Congress) p. 49, 1998.
• H Pollack, DA Gough, JH Price, "Time Lapse Scanning Cytometry of Live Cells Using a Microscope Stage Culture Chamber," Cytometry Supplement 9 (Int Soc Analyt Cytol ISAC XIX Int Congress) p. 43, 1998.

Campaign Statement

ISAC and the Cytometry journals collectively provide a unique scientific bridge between the technological innovations of cell measurement and the new research and clinical applications derived from them. Completion of the genomes of humans and an increasing array of other organisms provides a knowledge foundation that drives increasingly complex scientific questions about how intracellular components contribute first to the behaviors of cells and then to the organism as a whole. While current technologies like molecular arrays and mass spectrometry provide large scale whole-tissue ensemble data, new cytometry technologies will more directly elucidate intracellular molecular pathway details in the context of the intact cell living in a heterogeneous population in culture, or in the even more complex milieu of intact tissues. Imaging flow cytometry and image cytometry in 2D and 3D (and time) are among the technologies that are near their infancy in terms of the needed innovations in throughput and data analysis. The data generation rates in automated mage cytometry currently overwhelm the still-too-interactive analysis techniques. Yet new innovations in image cytometry instrumentation are likely to further increase acquisition speeds 10-fold or more. With 2D and 3D cell-by-cell measurements numbering in the hundreds. and continuing to expand via increased reporter multiplexing and additional fundamental imaging modalities, the challenges in advancing data analyses (e.g., data mining, pattern recognition and classification) are at least as great as those faced in creating new instrumentation.

These new technologies necessarily evolve in response to biological and clinical needs. The NIH Roadmap is expanding the use of chemical genomics screening techniques to the discovery of new molecules and pathways. Cancer and stem cell research questions increasingly combine information derived from molecular pathways, and cell migration and differentiation/dedifferentiation. Answering how molecules interact in stem cells to generate an organism or heal diseased/wounded tissues, as well as how what may be these same molecules fail to properly interact and give rise to cancer and other diseases, ultimately requires in situ analyses - or cytometry. Improving our understanding of how these intracellular mechanisms give rise to specific cellular behaviors will in turn create novel clinical diagnostics and treatments. I believe that ISAC has a unique opportunity to fulfill the role of technology translator by spanning cytometry technological innovations and novel biological/clinical applications. It would be an honor to participate in ISAC governance to facilitate rapid recognition, discussion and dissemination of these innovations to the scientific community.