Abstract: A method is disclosed in which control processes are used to maintain consistency across a research or diagnostic series of steps. Some embodiments of the processes include the use of fresh or lyophilized cell lines, beads, surface or other markers. The use of quality control processes is intended to monitor data from the underlying methods in order to detect unacceptable variations and to allow for exclusion or normalization. Overlapping control processes allows for tighter control and for redundancy in the monitoring.