Regenerative and predictive medicine of cardiovascular disease: the 9th Leipziger Workshop and the 2nd International Workshop on slide based cytometry.

Slide-based cytometry (SBC) and related techniques offer unique tools to perform complex immunophenotyping, thereby enabling diagnostic procedures at very early disease stages. Multicolor or polychromatic analysis of cells by SBC is of special importance, not only as a cytomics technology platform but also for patients with low blood volume such as neonates. The exact knowledge of the location of each cell on the slide allows restaining and subsequent reanalysis of the specimen. These separate measurements of the same specimen can be fused to one data file (merging), thus increasing the information obtained per cell. Relocalization and optical evaluation of the cells, a feature typical of SBC, can be of integral importance for cytometric analysis. Due to this feature, artifacts can be excluded and morphology of measured cells can be documented. Predictive medicine aims at the detection of changes in patient's state before the manifestation of the disease or its complications. Such instances concern multiorgan failure in sepsis or noninfectious posttraumatic shock in intensive care patients or the pretherapeutic identification of high-risk patients undergoing cancer cytostatic therapy. Early anti-infectious or antishock therapy and curative chemotherapy in combination with stem cell transplantation may provide better chances of patients' survival at concomitant cost containment. Predictive medicine that guides early individualized decrease or cessation of therapy may lower or abrogate potential therapeutic side effects (individualized medicine). Regenerative medicine concerns patients who have diseased and injured organs and may be treated with transplanted organs. However, there is a severe shortage of donor organs that is worsening yearly given the aging population. Regenerative medicine and tissue engineering apply the principles of cell transplantation, material science, and bioengineering to construct biological substitutes that will restore and maintain normal function in diseased and injured tissues. Neovascularization is promoted by bone marrow-derived endothelial progenitor cells that lead to the formation of entirely new vessels into ischemic tissue. With this knowledge, many therapeutical borders can be skipped. Diseases formerly uncontrolled can be corrected with stem cells to provide causal healing with regeneration processes. The 9th Leipziger Workshop combined with the 2nd International Workshop on SBC aimed to offer new methods in image cytometry and SBC for solutions in clinical research. It moved toward practical applications in clinics and the clinical laboratory. This development will be continued in 2005 at the upcoming Leipziger Workshop and the 3rd International Workshop on SBC. Copyright 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.