Premier Lecture Series

Tissue microarray technology has emerged as a powerful tool for measuring tumor-specific protein expression and linking it to clinical outcome. Automated quantitative analysis of the tissue spots take the technology one step further, removing observer bias, providing standards for quality control and providing for high throughput analysis. We have developed a platform (PM1000) and software (AQUA) that allow rigorous in situ assessment of protein expression with the accuracy of an ELISA assay. We have used this platform on a series of large cohort tissue microarrays to discover a range of relationships between protein expression and outcome that are not discernable using conventional pathologist based analysis. We believe this sort of quantitative, objective validation will facilitate the translation of tissue biomarkers from the research lab to broad clinical usage.