Recent Developments and Future Directions in Clinical Tissue Analysis

Session 770

Room 206B

8:30–11:45 a.m.

In this Tuesday morning symposium, speakers will present novel analytical strategies focused mainly on real-time, in vivo, and in situ tissue analysis.

Sheila Riazi of Nicolaus Copernicus University will open the session with a talk about what clinicians need from analytical chemists for diagnosis and treatment of disease. She will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of current tests, and focus on clinicians' goals for complementary tests, specifically focusing on techniques involving the tracking of biochemical alterations. 

Stephen Weber of the University of Pittsburgh will then talk about an integrated system his group has developed for the measurement of the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin. The group’s goal is to make measurements of neurotransmitter dynamics and basal levels continuously or during certain periods over many days in awake, behaving animals. The presentation will describe the theory-guided experimental work that has resulted in new capabilities for microdialysis monitoring.

Lingjun Li of the University of Wisconsin will present next, on mass spectrometry (MS)-based tools designed to precisely determine the identity of a neuropeptide or quantifying a compound with a known sequence, while revealing its putative function with in vivo sampling and quantitative analysis. Tools based on MS and tandem MS (MS/MS) have been developed, both with isotope labeling strategies and label-free methods, that allow accurate quantitation of neuropeptide changes associated with behavior or physiological manipulation, concurrent with identification of sequence.

After the break, Zoltan Takats of Imperial College London will discuss the use of infrared laser MS imaging and rapid evaporative ionization MS (REIMS) for improving accuracy in MS-guided surgery. In his work, MS imaging using laser desorption ionization was tested as an alternative way to create histologically assigned training data sets for REIMS. The results obtained for breast cancer show the feasibility of this approach, resulting in improved information recovery and accuracy. 

The final talk, by session chair Barbara Bojko of Nicolaus Copernicus University, will cover in vivo and in situ use of solid-phase microextraction (SPME) in tissue analysis. SPME has been tested for targeted and untargeted tissue analysis for the past few years in animal and human models. In the talk, the characteristics of the method will be discussed along with its future perspectives in biomedical research and clinical practice, particularly as point-of-care diagnostic tool in the emergency room or intensive care unit.