The Research Pathology Core Facility (RPF) is a fee-for-service facility located on the sixth floor of the E Pavillion (E-604.1 and E-621) of the Jewish General Hospital. The main function of this core is to provide the Researchers of the Segal Cancer Centre and the LDI as well as the Pharmaceutical Industry with technical expertise related to histology and pathology. The facility is equipped with top of the line instruments, including:听Microtome Leica RM 2255 -听Designed for fully motorized sectioning of paraffin embedded specimens;听Cryostat Leica CM3050S -听designed for motorized sectioning of听frozen blocks;听Immunostainer Ventana Discovery XT - with听30 slide positions, variable temperature control and flexible software options;听Manual Tissue Arrayer MTA-1 -听The manual arrayer allows for relatively easy construction of tissue microarrays with several hundred specimens. Typical size of an array is ~500 cases; and TMA Master - an automated and computer controlled tissue microarray (TMA) block creating machine that drills the recipient blocks and punches the donor blocks with high precision of 0.6, 1, 1.5 and 2 mm diameter. The Tissue Microarray (TMA) technique enables researchers to analyze several hundred tissue samples within a single paraffin block, providing highly efficient evaluation and assessment of the samples.
The RPF offers the following services:
- Consultation for experimental set up
- Project specific optimization of histological approaches
- Tissue harvesting
- Decalcification
- Paraffin and frozen tissue sectioning
- Basic and special stains (Giemsa- to differenciate between blood cells; Grocott- stain fungi; Masson鈥檚 Trichrome- stain connective tissue; Nissl- to identifie the basic neuronal structure in brain and spinal cord tissue; Oil Red O-lipid and triglycides detection; PAS- basement membrane and carbohydrates detection; Perl鈥檚 Iron- Iron detection; Reticulum silver- stain reticular fibers; Sirius Red- stain collagen; Verhoeff- stain elastic fibers; Von Kossa- calcium detection). For other histochemical stains, please send us an nbenlimame [at] jgh.mcgill.ca (email).
- Immunohistochemistry (paraffin and frozen samples)
- Immunofluorescence (Cells and tissues)
- Antibody titration and optimization
- Microscopic analysis by a pathologist
- Tissue microarray design and construction:听TMA construction involves the transfer of multiple cores from conventional formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) patient (ie, archival pathology samples) or animal tissue(s) to a fresh recipient paraffin block. Following the assessment and selection of standard H&E tissue sections by a pathologist, tissue cores of 0.6 鈥� 2.0 mm in diameter from a given FFPE tissue donor block are transferred to a recipient paraffin block. The recipient block, containing sample cores from hundreds of patients, can then be used to assess patterns of bio-marker expression within a population of patients. One advantage of this technology is that samples are handled identically. TMAs provide a method for rapid, large-scale molecular analysis of thousands of tissue specimens, therefore providing a powerful technique for evaluating newly discovered molecular alterations in cancer research.
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Contact
Alan Spatz, M.D.,听Scientific Director
Director, Dept. of Pathology, Jewish General Hospital.
Professor of Pathology and Oncology, 91社区.
Tel: (514) 340-8274 ext. 25475
aspatz [at] jgh.mcgill.ca (Email听)
Naciba Benlimame, Ph.D., Facility听Manager
Segal Cancer Centre, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Room E-613
Tel: (514) 340-8222 ext. 24538
nbenlimame [at] jgh.mcgill.ca (Email听)
Lilian Canetti,听Technical Specialist
Segal Cancer Centre, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research,听Room E-604.1
Tel: (514) 340-8222 ext. 23698
lcanetti [at] jgh.mcgill.ca (Email)听
