Precision medicine can impact the treatment of cancer by identifying the right drug at the right time for the right patient. However, current fron-end pathology tools are insufficient for today's sophisticated functional genomic tests. In order t improve patient outcomes, we propose to advance an innovative technology, Expression Microdissection (xMD) that utilizes standard immunohistochemistry to easily and rapidly isolate pure tumor cell populations from heterogeneous tissue sections. In our proposal, we aim to clinically validate xMD technology on common tumor types by assessing dissection efficiency, specificity, and reproducibility, and to establish standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the xMD process. We will also evaluate the quality of the recovered DNA, RNA and protein and assess the effect of xMD on assay results. Finally, we will study a set of lung cancer specimens to evaluate the robustness of xMD and generate a comprehensive patient report detailing the molecular profile of each patient specimen.
Expression microdissection rapidly isolates specific tumor cell populations from a heterogeneous histological slide to improve molecular diagnostic assays. Based on its precision and high-throughput capabilities, xMD is now ready for full clinical validation in order to support the advancement of precision medicine. Our project has the potential to improve public health by refining underlying technology directly related to cancer diagnostics and how physicians choose cancer therapies for patients.
