RE: Microarray Technology?

From:Patsy.Ruegg@UCHSC.edu

I am including a copy of a review I wrote for the IHCRG Bulletin on a
Microarray workshop I took last Feb. in N.M.
Patsy Ruegg 

Workshop Review
Molecular Morphology Workshops
Santa Fe  2000
International Society for Analytical and Molecular Morphology
February 6-8, 2000
 
A review presented by:  Patsy Ruegg, HT(ASCP)QIHC
In 1999 I was awarded the Ventana IHC Scholarship by NSH.  I used the $1000.
awarded to go to the Molecular Morphology Workshops in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The meeting was held at the La Fonda Hotel, a beautiful historical hotel in
downtown Santa Fe.  The format of the meeting was a series of six half-day
workshops.  This is a rather small meeting with approximately 100 attendees.
The workshops were hands on and very personal.  The equipment and technology
display was awesome, something like I have never seen anywhere and certainly
mostly nothing a routine histology lab could ever afford to buy.  It sure
was fun stuff to drool over, though.
Workshop #2
Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) and the PixDell II System: A New and
Unique Tool for Rapid "Specific Cell" Molecular and Biochemical Diagnostics
by Dr. Jeffrey C. Travis ARCTURUS,Mountain View, CA 94043, U.S.A.
This system offered a means to isolate and extract an often small population
of cells of interest from tissue sections.  Gene expression and protein
patterns require the cell capture and extraction of a microscopic
subpopulation of homogeneous cells from their complex tissue environment.  
Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) has been developed to provide a method
for capturing and preserving specific cells from fixed tissue, cell cultures
or cytological smears for subsequent molecular and biochemical analytical
procedures.  With this system and thermoplastic film is placed on the
surface of a "fixed" specimen on a glass slide.  The region of interest is
visualized with an inverted microscope and an infrared laser (coupled to the
microscope) is pulsed through the film. The film "melts" into the specimen
and the result causes the specific cell(s) underneath to adhere to the film,
with the morphology intact. The film (attached to a "cap") is then lifted
off the slide by a transport arm and placed in a standard microfuge tube
containing extraction buffer for molecular and other analyses.  We were
shown this methodology and then given the opportunity to perform LCM
ourselves.
Image archiving allowed for photo-documentation of the entire process. This
was pretty darn cool stuff, but very expensive equipment as you can imagine.
The Prostate Cancer Research Lab at my institution actually has one of these
instruments.

		-----Original Message-----
		From:	Dave Tacha [mailto:dave@biocare.net]
		Sent:	Sunday, September 17, 2000 5:28 PM
		To:	histonet@Pathology.swmed.edu
		Subject:	Microarray Technology?

		Could someone explain microarray technology pertaining to
tissue or
		cells on microscopic slides. How does it work?  What
techniques are
		use?  Does someone have a protocol they could e-mail.  Can
you use
		formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues?

		David Tacha
		



<< Previous Message | Next Message >>