Case Study: CEA research team achieves minute-scale breakthroughs in multi-million-row, multi-dimensional data analysis with Tableau Software

CEA Researchers find breakthroughs in millions of rows of data

CEA’s research team, led by Antonio Cosma, was grappling with massive multi‑dimensional flow cytometry data—individual samples containing about 1 million cells with 30–40 parameters each, across many samples and patient groups. Existing tools couldn’t visualize or aggregate the data effectively, so routine hypothesis testing could take up to three hours and some questions were simply deferred.

After adopting Tableau, the team could visualize, filter, aggregate and drill down into millions of rows in minutes, enabling immediate hypothesis testing and faster insight. The tool’s impact was rapid: analyses that once took hours are now answered on the spot, colleagues requested access, and the deployment grew from one license to more than 20 with a rollout planned for 100+ users and collaborating labs.

CEA

Antonio Cosma

Research Scientist