Project Details
Projekt
Automated digital high-precision, high-throughput tissue microarray (TMA) system
Subject Area
Medicine
Term
Funded in 2022
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 508608399
The large-scale device applied for here is a system consisting of various components, including a slide scanner for digitizing histological section preparations, a tissue microarray (TMA) punching machine for clamping 60 donor paraffin tissue blocks and 12 recipient paraffin blocks, as well as the associated computer software and hardware. This system is to be integrated into a new "Advanced Tissue Imaging & Digital Pathology" Core Facility to be established at the Institute of Pathology at the University Hospital of Tübingen, where it will be used as a central component. The slide scanner in this system will be required to digitize freshly cut hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained tissue sections of the paraffin blocks. A high-resolution photograph of the cut surface of the paraffin block is then taken of each donor tissue block in the TMA puncher, which is automatically digitally aligned to the digitized, H&E-stained section. High-precision annotations are then made on the computer of the exact tissue regions to be integrated into the TMA. The TMA punching machine has different drill core sizes between 0.6 and 2.0 mm. Conventional, manual creation of TMAs, as is currently done at the Institute of Pathology with the device acquired in 2006, is unthinkable with this precision and does not have the necessary throughput to serve numerous projects. In addition, the automatic punching machine allows up to 12 duplicates of the TMA to be produced simultaneously (12 receiver blocks) for the preparation of numerous stains and, for example, for shipping in collaborations. The high-precision TMAs are necessary for advanced tissue imaging (highly multiplexed microscopy) to characterize biomarkers as well as to analyze cellular interactions in the tumor microenvironment. Currently, highly multiplexed microscopy does not allow for high throughput, making many tissues on a slide central to performing experiments and further analysis. The TMA puncher also has a PCR module that allows output of cores into sample vials for DNA/RNA extraction.Numerous studies are currently being planned and will be processed using the requested instrument, including studies on cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma, peritoneal mesothelioma, colorectal carcinoma, malignant melanoma, glioblastoma, etc. In addition, the proposed device will be used in a central project of the Collaborative Research Center 1623 "ImmunoPersist" currently in application, in biobank service projects of the University Hospital Tübingen and for clinical studies / molecular tumor board.
DFG Programme
Major Research Instrumentation
Major Instrumentation
Automatisiertes Digitales Hochpräzisions- und Hochdurchsatz Tissue Microarray (TMA) System
Instrumentation Group
5042 Mikroskope für Hochdurchsatz und Screening
Applicant Institution
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
