Hello everybody!

Many thanks for those who have registered interest in Cytkit, the open source spectral cytometer. It was great to meet so many enthusiastic people at recent events including CYTO and the Babraham Spectral Cytometry Symposium.

Cytkit really seems to have struck a chord among the cytometry community. Many people are interested for a range of reasons. The reason that I find most important is that cytometrists want power over what is in those boxes, just like they once did in the early days of cytometry. But in the intervening decades, commercial cytometers have gradually become fully-serviced black boxes. So an open cytometer uniquely gives the cytometrist new professional powers: to customise, design and tinker, to understand and investigate, and new tools to build new things.

With a couple of contributors, we are working to complete the Cytkit system, and gearing up for a pre-order campaign. The offer will go out when Cytkit is ready, and not before! Although the design so far (v0.3) is on Github, not many people can make use of it yet, because they would not only need to find all the parts, but also fill in the gaps: rustle up their own electronics, detectors and data acquisition system. So I want the design to be mature before we promise to deliver. That means at least another major iteration of the optics and mechanics. And, very importantly, a complete and well-documented electronics system and a fully functional software interface. Work is proceeding on all of these aspects.

Therefore, there is lots still to do! The pre-order is going to be delayed past September. Nevertheless, in the spirit of openness, I hope to take you along with us, by keeping you updated of our progress. There have already been a set of videos and technical posts on the website blog and posted on LinkedIn. I hope to keep up the cadence of a couple of updates per month until the pre-order campaign starts.

Feel free to get in touch if you want to contribute or have any thoughts to share!

Best wishes,

Samson Rogers