Human Tissue Acquisition and Pathology Shared Resource
Overview
The Human Tissue Acquisition and Pathology Shared Resource (VICC) provides access to human tissue samples, histology services, and specialized equipment to investigators for the purpose of research.
Human tissues are collected prospectively from routine surgical resections and autopsies for use by investigators in basic, translational and clinical research studies. Only remnant tissue samples not needed for diagnostic purposes are collected. These tissues are available fresh, snap frozen, or in a variety of fixatives as requested by the investigator. Normal, neoplastic, and other diseased tissues are available for study. Additional clinical information can be obtained without compromising patient confidentiality. The resource also provides tissue collection and storage services for several research groups. All of the tissue samples are organized and distributed utilizing relational databases designed by the Tissue Clinical Informatics Shared Resource.
Tissue procurement services can be requested by completing and submitting this form.
Our full service research histology laboratory offers paraffin embedding, sectioning, automated Hematoxylin and Eosin staining, frozen sectioning and a large selection of special stains. The laboratory also offers specialized processing and sectioning services including cell block preparations, RNase free sectioning, special processing for lacZ stained samples, and tissue microarray sectioning. The lab is continually developing new protocols to meet the special needs of requesting investigators.
The facility also offers access to a laser capture microdissection system, tissue microarray equipment for making microarray blocks, and a Bacus Laboratory slide scanner (BLISS system).
Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) systems rapidly isolates pure cell populations for cell-specific analysis and enables the investigator to increase the sensitivity and accuracy of molecular assays by starting with samples of homogeneous cell types and multi-cellular structures isolated from whole tissue or cytology samples. LCM has enormous flexibility with respect to tissue and cell fixation preparations. LCM effectively extracts cells from both paraffin-embedded and frozen tissue sections prepared using a wide variety of different dyes, slide surfaces, and protocols, providing quality material for a wide variety of DNA, RNA, and protein analyses.
Tissue microarray instruments allow generation of multiple specimen slides that contain hundreds of individual tissues. Instead of incubating and analyzing samples one slide at a time, tissue microarrays (TMAs) allow the investigator to examine hundreds of samples with just one slide.
The Bacus Laboratory Inc. Slide Scanner (BLISS) system is a completely automated microscope controlled by a multiprocessor workstation. It has the unique capability to digitize an entire microscope slide at multiple objective magnification levels with an adjustable depth of field and create a distributable virtual microscope slide, the WebSlide®. The BLISS system enhances interpretation of tissue array material including core identification, labeling and quantitative scoring.
Return to Human Tissue Acquisition and Pathology Shared Resource Home
