Brent Palmer, PhD 

Director - Flow Cytometry 

Brent Palmer Ph.D. is Director of the ClinImmune Flow Cytometry and Bioarchiving Facility. Dr. Palmer has been the Director of the ClinImmune Flow Cytometry and Bioarchiving facility for over 10 years and has more than 30 years of flow cytometry experience. Dr. Palmer has over 70 publications in the field of clinical immunology and infectious disease and has worked directly with numerous academic and industry partners to provide Flow Cytometry and Bioarchiving services and consultation. Dr. Palmer is also a NIH funded Principle Investigator and an Associate Professor in the Divisions of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

303-724-7203 Brent.Palmer@cuanschutz.edu

Charles Preston Neff, PhD

Technical Director - Flow Cytometry

Dr. Charles Preston Neff, also known as Preston, serves as the technical director of the flow cytometry core facility. He received his PhD from Colorado State University and has been a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Colorado since August 2012. He has helped with many research-based flow cytometry experiments and is skilled in designing and optimizing panels as well as gating strategies for these types of experiments.

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Garrett Hedlund

Flow Core Manager 

Garrett received his B.S. degree in Biology from Metropolitan State University and has a CHT certificate from the American Board of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics. Garrett has 16 years of clinical and research laboratory experience and 12 years of flow cytometry experience, including cell sorting on multiple flow cytometers - sometimes simultaneously. Garrett has managed the Clinical Immunology flow cytometry facility for over 8 years, provides training on our flow cytometry analyzers and cell sorters, and performs up to 16 color cell sorting for core users. Garrett has also become an expert at fixing our flow cytometers, reducing machine downtime. He usually can fix any instrument problem on the spot, making life easier for our users. In addition to research flow cytometry, Garrett also performs clinical, College of Pathology (CAP) approved cell sorting for transplant engraftment monitoring which requires a high level of precision. He brings this same level of rigor to all cell sorts done for core users. Garrett is also well versed in antibody (fluorochrome) panel design. He has created a table to help the core user define the best fluorochrome combinations on our instruments (located on the website under instrument specs). He has optimized the filter combination on our machine to maximize detection and minimize compensation overlap.

Amy Noe

Program Manager

Amy received her M.P.S in biotechnology and B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Amy joined Dr. Palmer’s lab in March 2021 after moving to Denver from Maryland. Amy has over 16 years of experience in research, preclinical, and clinical testing, including more than 8 years of flow cytometry experience. She is responsible for the regulatory management of the Flow Core lab and maintains the Flow Core Lab’s CAP and CLIA accreditations. Amy attended formal flow cytometry training courses at the National Institutes of Health and received hands-on flow training from the Flow Cytometry Core at the Vaccine Research Center (the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH). Her time at the NIH involved research with the development, optimization, and standardization of multiparameter flow cytometry-based assays (up to 21 colors). Her flow experience includes immunophenotyping, intracellular staining, functional assay, and cell proliferation assay. Additionally, Amy has a clinical testing experience with blood-based cell-free tumor DNA oncology testing, which combines flow cytometry and emulsion digital PCR with magnetic beads. Amy also utilizes her flow cytometry skills in assisting with ongoing research projects, clinical testing (and sorting), and flow core contract projects.

303-724-7196 AMY.NOE@CUANSCHUTZ.EDU

Min Zhang, MD

Senior Professional Research Assistant

Min Zhang M.D. graduated from Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Science, Guangzhou, China. She received her Master of Philosophy degree in Molecular Biology and Diabetology from Hong Kong University. She is the clinical supervisor in the Flow Core Lab, the Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the University of Colorado – Anschutz. She has many years of professional experience in performing high complexity testing, including CD4 and CD8 counts for AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), Sort CD3, CD4, CD8, CD14, CD19, CD33, CD34 and CD56 positive cells for specific engraftment monitoring, CD34+ count, viability and %CD34+ of CD45+ cells. Additionally, she has flow cytometry skills to run clinical samples and analyze clinical data.

303-724-7210 MIN.ZHANG@CUANSCHUTZ.EDU

Henry Chu

Professional Research Assistant 

Henry joined the Palmer lab as a Professional Research Assistant in 2020 after graduating with a B.S degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Colorado Boulder. He joined the lab focused on clinical work and biobanking, and he was the primary biobank technician for 2020-2021. Henry also works on research projects in the lab and has experience performing research and clinical flow cytometry-based assays and processing clinical samples for the tissue bank. Henry also assists the flow manager with daily quality control and maintenance of the flow instruments.

303-724-7210 HENRY.CHU@UCDENVER.EDU