Flow cytometry measures the fluorescence or light diffraction of a large number of particles at high speed, such as cells, beads, bacteria, yeast, or organelles. At Institut Curie, flow cytometry is used mainly to quantify multiple markers on cells, with the option of simultaneously sorting multiple sub-populations of interest.

The primary advantage of flow cytometry is how quickly it produces data for a very large number of cells, allowing for complex and/or rare sub-populations of cells to be analyzed and sorted so that they can then be cultured or analyzed with molecular biology tools.

The cells in suspension may be simultaneously marked with 11 fluorochromes, each identifying a molecule of interest. The marked cells flow past a laser and, for each cell, the fluorescence intensity is quantified for each fluorochrome.
Fluorescent probes can be used to detect various parameters such as membrane potential, pH, or cell cycle (proliferation, apoptosis, etc).

The flow cytometry platform performs cell sorting, and also trains people to independently use high-speed multiparameter cytometers and the supporting software to acquire and analyze data.