Biomarker discovery research in the field of immuno-oncology relies heavily on immunohistochemistry (IHC) assays, involving the execution of tailored protocols with a high number of steps, all of which are subject to optimization. This can be a lengthy process that can take days, weeks and even months to perform, and requires a step-by-step approach to finetune protocol conditions such as assay temperature, antibody concentration or incubation times, in order to achieve optimal results with minimal investment of resources. Turnaround times of manual assays, even for single marker stainings, often require overnight incubations, and existing automated staining platforms, while faster, still require several hours to stain one marker and can appear to be very expensive when performed for high throughput, which turns these optimization phases into a long burdensome processes.
The LabSat® Research platform is an automated tissue immunostainer device. The system is pressurized and provides precise temperature and reagent flow control in order to finetune and optimize conditions, allowing high-quality and fast multiplexing of up to 6 markers within a few hours, and can perform single-plex staining under 30 minutes. This short timeframe is particularly well suited to run fast protocols during assay optimization in just a few samples, instead of staining large batches of slides to save precious samples or reagents.
Lunaphore’s core technology, the Fast Fluidic Exchange (FFeX), utilizes a microfluidic “Staining Chip” that delivers reagents sequentially onto a tissue sample. The chip is essentially a microfluidic tissue processor which forms a shallow chamber over the tissue sample. Reagents flow in and out of the chamber thanks to pressure differentials and the shallowness of the chamber increases the speed of exchange between antibodies and tissue epitopes, dramatically reducing the incubation times. Moreover, the staining chamber is filled almost instantaneously, preventing different areas of the tissue from being incubated unevenly, hence providing a great degree of signal uniformity in a controlled environment allowing more robust and reliable results. This active flow of reagents produces a fast exchange at the tissue surface, reducing the required incubation times.
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