Develop extremely-high-yield (5-10x conventional methods) tissue microarray techn

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We (Array Science, LLC) propose to perform detailed research and development of our patent-pending method and instrument for high-yield production of tissue microarrays (TMAs). Our approach to TMA production is novel inleveraging the liquid phase of standard histologic embedding media such as paraffin, and in so doing we achieve unprecedented levels of utilization of precious biological tissue sources. The outcome of this technique has proven highly beneficial in cancerdiagnostics, where it has produced over 1.3 million TMA sections for on-slide controls in a major immunohistochemistry (IHC) laboratory, and in IHC proficiency testing, where we have achieved new levels of yield as a supplier to the College of American Pathologists. Whereas conventional TMA production methods yield 100-300 slides per TMA block, our method routinely produces 1500 slides per TMA block, with highly reduced levels of waste of source tissue. Theoretical yield is still up to twice our curre