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Tissue sampling array for tumor marker profiling

The rise of prostate cancer diagnoses in the early 1990's due to better detection techniques and the recent advances in the clinical management of the disease have required better technologies for detection and monitoring disease status. The focus of my research at the Bioinstrumentation Laboratory was to design, fabricate and test an instrument for the preparation of excised frozen tissue from prostate cancer tumors in patients for conformal mapping of the sampling points to the local tissue geometry. This instrument was designed specifically for use on frozen samples that have been archived and the work involves solving issues inherent in extracting information from frozen tissue without denaturing DNA, RNA and proteins. Isolation of the nucleic acids from the bulk tissue and real time PCR amplification of a 152 bp segment of the androgen receptor was used to verify that the tissue was extracted successfully using the device. It is the intention of this work and others like it that quick and efficient mapping technologies will come into widespread use in predicting tumor size and growth rates thereby improving cancer patient diagnosis and treatment. Thesis Supervisor: Ian W. Hunter Title: Hatsopoulos Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Professor of BioEngineering