Grant: Applied Research Tools and Instruments Grants

This Applied Research Tools and Instruments grant aims at acquiring a flexible research-adapted immunostaining system to automate histopathological analysis in TransBIOTech applied research and development projects. This system would replace manual immunostaining techniques which are particularly labour-intensive for the research staff. Moreover, this system would dock directly with the current flow of histopathological analysis platform where the acquisition of microscopical images on histological specimens is already automated. This acquisition would significantly improve the efficiency and robustness of this limiting step in the numerous applied research projects involving immunostaining analysis conducted at TransBIOTech. Moreover, it would strongly benefit to the training of the numerous trainees and students that TransBIOTech supervise by exposing them to state-of-the-art technologies. Histology being among the lengthiest analyses in typical research projects performed at TransBIOTech, being capable of this improved pace would positively impact several of the industrial partners in the field of in vivo pharmacology. As critical decisions in a preclinical product pipeline are often based on preclinical experimental results, expediting the time-to-results would have a substantial effect on the campaign duration of industrial partners in their product development, consequently hastening their commercialization rates. Automated immunostaining modalities would thus benefit partner-oriented projects and leverage their innovation potential by improving results quality, getting answers faster but also by allowing TransBIOTech technicians to perform several experiments simultaneously, therefore increasing the productivity without compromising the employee well-being.