Dirk Van Bockstaele

Education & career background:

• MSc, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Antwerp University, Belgium.
• DSc: PhD Thesis: "Flow cytometry in Hematology: from differentiation using light scattering, to antigen density". Greatest distinction. Honored with the "Jean-Servais Stas" price of the "Academie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique", 1986.
• Qualified Investigator at
  • University Centre Limburg (1974-1981)
  • Catholic University Leuven (1974-1981)
  • Antwerp University (1981-1993)
    • Head of Flow Cytometry unit within the Hematology laboratory of the Antwerp University Hospital (1983-present).
    • Head of the Cell Sorting core unit of the Dept. of Medicine of the Antwerp University (1983-present).
    • Lector at Antwerp University (1993-1996)
    • Senior Lecturer (Invited Professor) with special appointment at Antwerp University (1996-present)
    • Independent consultant for Janssen Research Foundation (J&J), "Implementation of FACS analysis, sorting and instrumentation", Beerse, Belgium (1999-2001).
    • Head of Flow Cytometry Laboratory and Molecular Diagnostics Hematology of the Antwerp University Hospital (2000-present).
    • Independent consultant for Labcorp BVBA, "Flow Cytometry", Mechelen, Belgium, (2001-2003).
    • Independent consultant for NATO, Science for Peace Programme "Characterization of most important cells with polarizing scanning flow cytometry", (2001-2006).
    • Independent consultant for SGS Biopharma, Cytometry Expert, (2004-2005)

Leadership Experience

• See above (career).
• Founding member and first president (2 terms of office) of the "Belgian Society for Cytometry".
• Promotor / copromotor of numerous research projects (see full CV for details).

Contributions to ISAC and/or the field of Cytometry

• Member of the ISAC since 1984.
• Career almost completely devoted to cytometry (and molecular diagnostics): see above (career)
• Author/co-author of about 108 articles in peer reviewed journals mostly focusing on hematology and using cytometry as the principal research tool.
• Founding member and first president (2 terms of office) and board member of the "Belgian Society for Cytometry", (1995-present).
• Board Member of the Flow Cytometry Working Group, the Netherlands (1999-2005).
• Member of the "Expert Committee Flow Cytometry" of the Scientific Institute of Public Health - Louis Pasteur, Ministry of Social Affairs, Health and Environment, Brussels, Belgium (2000-present).
• Organizer, co-organizer, invited speaker at numerous scientific (national and international) cytometry sessions in Benelux and Europe (see full CV for details), as an example:
• Organizer of and speaker at workshop "Light Scattering Revisited" during the XXII International Congress of the International Society of Analytical Cytology, Montpellier, France, 22-27/05/04.

Skills Dirk can bring to the Council:

• Thorough expertise in flow cytometry from all viewpoints be it technical, physical, immunochemical, photo physical, biological or biomedical.
• Strong organizational skills.

Campaign statement

Having a basic science background I got involved in the field of flow cytometry at the very beginning of the introduction of commercial machines on the market (end of the 1970-ties) and have build up a thorough expertise in flow cytometry from all viewpoints be it technical, physical, immunochemical, photo physical, biological or biomedical.

The field has evolved enormously. In the early days one needed to exhibit a thorough understanding of all the basic principles beyond the apparatus, otherwise one could not operate the machine properly and generate data. And the expertise of operators and staff members gradually increased in parallel with the ever increasing instrumental complexity. Nowadays the cytometers look like pushbutton systems but all the complexity of the machinery is still there and hidden in the software. One is now able to generate data without proper knowledge of what can go wrong and thus without being able to discern strange results from erroneous results.

As an analytical councilor I would stress the need for proper education and training and defend a type of student-mentor relationship for novices to be introduced in the field. Towards accreditation organisms it is also important to stress the special and typical status of the cytometry environment in that it is one of the only research type apparatus in the clinical laboratory field with an open architecture and user modifiable settings. It is deliberately so designed in order to accommodate a large array of applications. Quality assurance should focus on the type of application and can vary from "classical" QA of automated testing (CD4 counting, progenitor counting) to expertise testing such as is the case in a pathology environment (leukemia & lymphoma immunophenotyping).

As a European member I would also stress the need for consensus efforts and efforts for making the technique, instrumentation, applications and reagents more feasible (more cost-effective) for use in less privileged regions of the world