A mill based instrument and software system for dissecting slide-mounted tissue that provides digital guidance and documentation

Nils Adey, Dale Emery, Derek Bosh, Steven Callahan, John Schreiner, Yang Chen, Ann Greig, Katherine Geiersbach, Robert Parry

Dissection of specific Areas Of Interest (AOIs) of slide-mounted tumor samples is often used to enrich for cancer cells in order to generate better signal to noise ratios in subsequent biochemical characterization. Most clinical laboratories utilize manual dissection for practical reasons and to avoid the expense and difficulties of laser microdissection systems. Unfortunately, manual methods often lack resolution and process documentation. The goal of this project was to design a dissection system for slide-mounted tissue with better precision than manual methods that also provides digital image guidance and electronic process documentation.