Service Project 2: Improving tissue preservation
Published on: Wednesday 05, October 2011BioCoR
Tissue biospecimens are typically frozen or formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) for use in diagnostic pathology. FFPE samples are retained for archival purposes and archival collections are an invaluable resource for biomedical research. In addition to use in diagnosis, FFPE sections are being used for extraction of nucleic acids (both DNA and RNA) and phosphoproteins due to growing interest in molecular-targeted cancer therapy. Frozen sections are also used for similar analysis.
The quality of tissue samples (frozen and FFPE) is a serious obstacle in advancing the treatment of human disease. We are proposing to develop: (1) new methods of freezing tissue to improve the quality of frozen samples; (2) develop methods of monitoring non-destructively the quality of FFPE samples; and (3) develop methods of enhancing recovery of biomarkers from FFPE samples that may have been stored for decades.
