The Clinical Discovery Laboratory houses the clinical chemistry, bioassay, and flow cytometry capabilities of DHMRI.

Clinical chemistry provides the support and resources to study a wide range of important chemical parameters of blood and other specimens ranging from electrolytes, to cardiac markers, to tumor antigens.

Bioassays provide accurate detection and quantitation of biomarkers, including cytokines, chemokines, cardiac markers, metabolic markers, or markers of inflammation which are important in the study of disease mechanisms, pathogenesis, and treatment. Biomarkers can reflect processes that are occurring at the cellular or tissue level, and provide a means for indirectly monitoring these processes.

Flow cytometry provides an additional capability to measure and analyze multiple physical characteristics of single cells and can be used to separate a complex mixture of cells into fractions of a single cell type that then can be studied in isolation. Flow cytometry typically uses fluorescent probes which bind to specific cell-associated molecules and allows measurements of various phenotypic, biochemical, and molecular characteristics of individual cells (or particles) suspended in a fluid stream. As the cells flow past a focused laser beam of appropriate wavelength, the probes fluoresce and the emitted light is collected and directed to appropriate detectors. These detectors, in turn, translate the light signals into electronic signals proportional to the amount of light collected. Information regarding the relative size and granularity of a cell, for example, is also obtained as these characteristics influence the way in which light is scattered as the cell passes through the laser beam. One of the properties of the larger flow cytometers is the ability to electronically deflect cells with preset, defined properties into a separate collection tube. For cell purification, flow cytometry is especially well suited for applications requiring high purity. Because multiple fluorochromes can be assessed simultaneously, cell sorting by flow cytometry can separate complex mixtures of cells on the basis of multiple marker expression.