This type of diagnostics is crucial in modern medicine, especially in the field of oncology, where accurate identification of tumor type, grade, and molecular characteristics is essential for effective treatment. This field involves examining the microscopic structure of tissues, identifying cellular abnormalities, and detecting molecular markers to provide precise diagnoses and guide treatment decisions. Advances in tissue diagnostics, such as digital pathology and molecular techniques, continue to enhance the precision and speed of diagnoses, ultimately improving patient outcomes and advancing personalized medicine.
strong experience in performing tissue staining
STRATEC has strong experience in performing tissue staining focusing on reliability, reproducibility as well as staining quality. This enables to perform a broad variety of different applications like ISH, FISH, IHC, IFA, H&E, etc. running in high volume pathology labs and thus supporting spatial bioanalysis.
- In Situ Hybridization (ISH)
In Situ Hybridization (ISH) is a molecular biology technique that allows for precise localization of a specific single-stranded nucleic acid target within a histologic section important for understanding the organization, regulation, and function of genes.
- Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization (FISH)
Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization (FISH) has the same basic principles as ISH except utilizing a fluorescence probe to detect specific nucleotide sequences within tissues. It is used in medical diagnostics to assess e.g. chromosomal integrity.
- Immunohistochemistry (IHC)
Immunohistochemistry (IHC) uses antibodies to detect the location of proteins and other antigens in tissue sections helping to understand the localization, distribution and expression levels of specific biomarkers. IHC is widely performed in the diagnosis of abnormal cells such those found in cancerous tumors.
- Indirect Fluorescent Antibody (IFA)
Indirect Fluorescent Antibody (IFA) assays has the same basic principles as IHC but uses in contrast to enzymatic labels a fluorescent signal as visualization method enabling multi-color imaging.
- Hematoxylin and Eosin stain (H&E)
Hematoxylin and Eosin stain (H&E) is the combination of two histological stains (hematoxylin and eosin) and is the gold standard stain used in histology and medical diagnosis to investigate biopsy of a suspected cancer.
Challenge(s)
Standard tissue staining protocols contain several steps using a large number of reagents which differ in pH, polarity, viscosity, flow characteristics and the inclination to form precipitates. This huge number of different factors can significantly decrease instrument reliability due to reagent and material compatibility issues as well as filter and valve clogging resulting in poor staining quality.
OUR SOLUTION
To overcome these challenges, STRATEC uses high performance pumps (LCM Pump) ensuring excellent accuracy as well as precision values by adapting the pump parameters specifically to the characteristics of the processed reagent. Moreover, the use of modular dispense features avoids material as well as reagent compatibility issues. In combination with temperature as well as pressure controls of the entire liquid path, these features ensure a high system reliability and enables preventive maintenance to further support the robustness of the entire system over time. All together, these implemented technologies meet the needs of high volume pathology labs to get high quality tissue staining for both IVD as well as research applications.
Utilizing well characterized and off-the-shelf high precision pumps to increase performance and reducing development times
Modular dispense features will avoid material as well as reagent compatibility issues
In-line temperature and pressure controls ensure high system reliability
Possibility to perform preventive maintenance by analyzing the sensor values to detect possible clogging in the system
STRATEC Competences
One of the biggest strength of STRATEC is the composition of the development teams including people from a huge variety of different disciplines like engineering, chemistry, physics, biology, informatics, etc. leading to the entire understanding of the needed system important to meet the needs of our customers.
For this application area particularly the interplay between mechanical, micro-fluidic, simulation, reliability experts as well as biologists, data scientists, system architectures and system integration specialists is the key for a successful development. Having all disciplines in-house ensure very efficient and fast development times important for time to market and thus bringing a competitive advantage into the aspired application field.
