QUB/2503/24 Contract for Supply, Delivery, Installation, Commissioning and Maintenance of a TMA Arrayer

The Queen's University Genomics Core Technology Unit (GCTU) processes tissue samples for spatial transcriptomic analysis. This is a cutting-edge technique whereby researchers can determine the precise location of gene expression within the tissue context. To allow us to process archival tissue samples e.g. biobanked samples, or precious samples in a cost-effective way, we require instrumentation that will allow us to create tumour microarrays (TMAs). A TMA contains many small representative tissue samples from tens to hundreds of different patient/animal samples assembled on a single histological slide, and therefore allows high throughput analysis of multiple specimens at the same time. This also enables cost-effective analysis as multiple samples can be processed on a single slide, which is important for us to offer as a core service. By purchasing such instrumentation, this would enable the GCTU to support large scale studies, increase our throughput and decrease costs for users.