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2019
Editorial
Titel
SRL communi(ty)cate
Titel Supplements
Editorial
Abstract
It is not that the SRL (shared resource laboratory formerly known as core facility) community would not communicate. It is just the opposite. Local and global networks exist for many years; internet platforms have been established and demonstrate the vivid information exchange between SRL communities. In addition, the ISAC has established communications platforms at their annual CYTO conferences and also now at CYTOAsia and similar platforms exist for a long time in local cytometry societies and information is shared via CYTO University and other pipelines. Not to forget that we started 4 years ago with our SRL Emerging Leaders Mentorship Program 1 to further involve SRL leaders into management of the journal. However, an official format for fostering the scientifically peer reviewed publication in an official publication organ like Cytometry Part A was lacking and was felt as gap by the community, so we formed a task force to make a change. In my memory we met first at CYTO 2016 in Seattle with SRL leaders to decide what should be done to establish the SRL communication type publication format and how the guidelines for contributions should look like. That such a format had to be started was without any doubt and I announced its launch in some of my editorials in the last years. But good things take time and now finally I am happy to announce the official kick‐off of the SRL Communications manuscript category and like to invite the global SRL community to contribute with their latest achievements. You will find more details about the new format in the Communication by Davies, Filby, and Lannigan (This issue includes pp.). The biosafety guidelines by Perfetto et al. (This issue includes pp.) serves as a prototype article for the new category. As a side note, in fact the real first prototype manuscript was the best practices publication by Barsky et al. 2 and it preceded the guideline publication by over 2 years. However, this publication was the highest downloaded manuscript of the year (1,834 downloads up to date) and has been so far over 4,000 times downloaded as full text article demonstrating the urgent need for such guidelines in the global community. My choice of the month is the review article by Olsen et al. (This issue includes pp.) on prerequisite knowledge needed for complex bioinformatics on high dimensional mass cytometry data. As mass cytometry analysis of suspended cells reaches growing audience and standardized protocols like our OMIPs start to get available with the first having 29 parameters 3 and highest dimensional one so far already 34 4 using advanced bioinformatics becomes unavoidable. This needs the expertise of IT scientists, biostatisticians and mathematicians who often lack deep insight into the details and pitfalls of such experiments. This group of scientists is the target audience of the review and should provide then better understanding for developing improved data visualization and analytical tools urgently needed by the wider community of biomedical scientists. In my view this is a highly relevant information and should in future be expanded to imaging mass cytometry 5 for include locational cytometry 6 as an additional pivotal information yielding from deep analysis of tissue material.