High Speed, High Resolution Slide Scanner for Research in Translational Medicine

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT This application is an instrumentation grant from the Analytical Imaging Facility (AIF) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine to acquire a fully automated, high-capacity, high-resolution slide scanner that can accommodate both brightfield and fluorescence imaging. The AIF of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine supports NIH-funded investigators by giving them access to state-of-the-art microscopy technologies that enhance collaborative, multidisciplinary research. Acquisition of this instrument will have a high impact on the biomedical research at Einstein and will expand the scope of NIH-funded projects at Einstein. Several projects have been identified that will heavily utilize the scanner. These include: the study of the formation of invasion promoting structures used to systemically disseminate metastatic cancer cells in carcinoma (Condeelis), correlative Intravital-Histopathologic Imaging to dissect the tumor microenvironment (Entenberg), establishment and validation of an immunocompromised radiation proctitis mouse model (Guha), studying the prometastatic effects of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer (Karagiannis), investigating the effect of tumor environment on metastasis (Oktay), the analysis of molecular markers of risk of subsequent invasive breast cancer in women with ductal carcinoma in situ (Rohan), and the study of hepatocyte heterogeneity with respect to gene transcription signatures and their zonal distribution within the intact liver in healthy tissue as well as diseased patient tissue (Singer).There are also additional projects of Minor Users and many users in the Einstein community are anticipated. All of the projects in this application are in need of high-capacity and high- reproducibility scanning so that analyses may be applied to larger tissues, covering hundreds of fields of view, rather than the single fields of view acquired on a standard microscope.