Dave asked about tissue microarrays.

Tissue microarray technology was developed at the NIH
With this process selected cores(0.6mm/diam) are removed up from up to 1000
paraffin blocks and re-embedded in a paraffin "recipient" block. Beecher
Instruments makes a manual  tissue arrayer that is used to create the
recipient block, where the cores are separated by 0.1mm.

The Instrumedics' Paraffin Tape-Transfer system makes it possible to support
and capture the section with the cores intact and to transfer them to a
slide. The tape-transfer process eliminates the water bath step which can be
damaging to the cores in the section.

The cores, all on one slide,  can be used  for immunocytochemistry , in-situ
hybridization, FISH, etc, and is ideal for tumor profiling, rapid screening
of gene amplifications in cancer, identifying prognostic markers and testing
antibodies.

Labs around the world are involved in research using tissue arrays and those
labs are using the Beecher arrayer in combination with the Paraffin
Tape-Transfer system.

Visit our web site for more information.
www.instrumedics.com

Bernice
schiller@instrumedics.com