SAB News“Another Conversation with an Expert”Posted 7/23/2003 The live discussion focused on summarizing the findings from The Science Advisory Board’s study, “Tissue Microarrays.” As part of the popular Snapshots Live series, this discussion offers the opportunity for members of The Science Advisory Board to listen to a stimulating conversation about cutting edge adaptations and overall best practices in e-scale and high-throughput genomic and proteomic studies. This event was designed to answer members’ heretofore-unanswered questions about “who’s doing what and how” when it comes to tissue microarrays. By listening to this Snapshots Live recording, you can learn more about the products and techniques most commonly employed by scientists conducting TMA research and the product attributes and suppliers with which they are most satisfied. Almost two-thirds of the participants in the study use TMAs to perform basic research on specific genes or proteins, with proteins being detected 65% of the time, followed by DNA and RNA being detected 51% and 46% of the time, respectively. TMAs allow hundreds of tissue specimens to be examined on a single microscope slide, greatly streamlining the processes of drug discovery and clinical diagnosis. In contrast to traditional tissue analysis techniques, which use at least one slide for every tissue from each patient or test subject, TMAs are created with specialized instrumentation that can remove small, circular punches from tissue specimens and array up to 1,000 different samples on the same slide. Despite its powerful throughput capabilities only 22% of the surveyed researchers utilize TMA for the high-throughput analysis of tissue samples. Fifty-four percent of the study participants work with frozen tissue, with fixed samples being more prevalent than unfixed samples. These 30-minute teleconferences feature a brief online presentation of the study results, coupled with insights provided by our in-house team of analysts. Each teleconference features a question and answer session where study participants discuss key issues and ask questions about the spotlighted technology. You can access the results of the latest studies and listen to an MP3 recording of the call itself. Click on http://scienceboard.net/snapshotslive/ to access the page. If you have participated and completed a survey, and reside in North America, we will welcome your voice and ideas on future teleconferences. Please contact Jen Halverson at j.halverson@scienceboard.net for more information. Let’s hear what you have to say! |
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