Application of Tissue Microarrays and Spatial Phenotyping Platforms to Identify Variability in Tumor Biopsies

Course overview

Multiplexed imaging technologies have drastically improved our ability to characterize healthy and diseased tissues at the single-cell level. However, these technologies are expensive and consume instrument time, computational and personnel resources. Integration of tissue microarrays greatly reduces time and costs. Digital image-based tissue microarray (TMA) construction service uses a fully automated instrumentation that is integrated into the CLIA SOP workflow. This enables access to fully annotated clinical specimens with patient data from both the UW and the SCCA patient tumor archives, which can be accessed through scientific research collaborations. Biopsy TMAs can be interrogated with up to 40 cellular markers using ISH/IHC, mIHC and CODEX technologies to derive a spatial map of tumor, stromal, and immune cell subsets. These exciting advancements from spatial phenotyping platforms can be used to expand our knowledge of the tumor microenvironment and the understanding of treatment efficacy or response.