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Policies, After Hours Use and Data Storage

General Policies

  1. All users must be trained by FCF Staff and given permission to use any of the analytical instruments.
  2. All users must log in with their own login account. Login accounts may not be used by anyone other than the person to whom it is issued.
  3. All users must follow decontamination procedures as outlined in the FCF Biosafety Policies and Procedure manual at the end of each appointment.
  4. If you are the last user of the day or there is greater than a two-hour time slot before the next appointment you are required to turn off the instrument and shut down the computer.
  5. For the FACSCalibur, If you are the first user of the day you must prime the instrument and perform the Calibration procedure as outlined in the operation manual.
  6. All samples must be filtered immediately prior to running on any instrument. We recommend the use of 12 x 75-mm tubes with cell-strainer caps (#352235, BD Falcon), 70 µm cell strainers (#352350,BD Falcon) or nylon mesh with a pore size of 70-100 µm or less.

After Hours Use of Analytical Instruments

  1. Users who have been trained and approved to operate analytical instruments without operator assistance can be granted permission to use these instruments outside normal business hours (Monday - Friday 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.) at the discretion of FCF Staff. Requests to access the FCF on weekends or outside normal business hours can be made by completing the 24 Hour FCF access request form (see the Security Access section on the Getting started page for more info).
  2. All Users who run experiments on weekends/holidays or whose weekday experiments finish after 6 p.m. MUST perform the "After Hours QC Check Procedure." See the links below for instructions.

Booking Policies

For more information, visit the Appointment Booking Policies link. »»

Data Storage

  1. The FCF is not responsible for data storage. All users are strongly encouraged to transfer their data to their own data storage device immediately after data acquisition.
  2. For the FACSCalibur instruments, all files acquired within a month (excluding CellQuest Pro templates and instrument settings) are deleted on the second Monday of following month (i.e. the second Monday of September, all data acquired in August is deleted from the hard drive).
  3. For LSRII and CantoII instruments, data and experiment templates can be temporarily exported to the D://BDExportFCFusers folder only. Data or experiments located on the D:// drive and also within the Diva Browser will be deleted every 1st and 3rd Monday of the month. Data placed in any other location will be deleted.

Misuse of Instruments Policy:

  1. All users approved to operate the analytical cytometers without operator assistance must agree to abide by our standard operating procedures for care and cleaning of the instruments.
  2. Users who let the sheath tank run dry, waste tank overflow, leave the instrument on overnight, or who disregard our policies in other ways will be subjected to a minimum $200 fee to cover parts and labour needed to restore the instrument to normal functioning.
  3. Users who repeatedly misuse our instruments in this fashion will be prohibited from operating the analytical cytometers UNLESS they are supervised by FCF staff.