Unsupervised imaging, registration and archiving of tissue microarrays.

Tissue microarray (TMA) technology offers several advantages over traditional methods of specimen preparation by maximizing limited tissue resources and providing the means for visualizing molecular targets. Currently, the primary methods used to evaluate arrays involves the interactive review of TMA samples while they are viewed by microscope and are subjectively evaluated and scored. The process is slow, tedious and prone to error. In order to facilitate large-scale, multi-institutional studies a more automated and reliable means for processing tissue microarrays is needed. We have developed a web-based prototype which features automated imaging, registration and intelligent archiving of tissue microarrays in multi-user, network environments.