iFlow: A Graphical User Interface for Flow Cytometry Tools in Bioconductor

Flow cytometry (FCM) has become an important analysis technology in health care and medical research, but the large volume of data produced by modern high-throughput experiments has presented significant new challenges for computational analysis tools. The development of an FCM software suite in Bioconductor represents one approach to overcome these challenges. In the spirit of the R programming language (Tree Star Inc., “FlowJo,” http://www.owjo.com), these tools are predominantly console-driven, allowing for programmatic access and rapid development of novel algorithms. Using this software requires a solid understanding of programming concepts and of the R language. However, some of these tools|in particular the statistical graphics and novel analytical methods|are also useful for nonprogrammers. To this end, we have developed an open source, extensible graphical user interface (GUI) iFlow, which sits on top of the Bioconductor backbone, enabling basic analyses by means of convenient graphical menus and wizards. We envision iFlow to be easily extensible in order to quickly integrate novel methodological developments.