Multiplexed Imaging Platforms

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editor

Edwin Roger Parra

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, Translational Molecular Pathology Immunoprofiling Laboratory

Edwin Roger Parra is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Multiplex Immunofluorescence (mIF) and Digital Pathology Laboratory, Translational Molecular Pathology Immunoprofiling Laboratory (TMP-IL) in the Department of Translational Molecular Pathology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is a pathologist with a strong background in surgical pathology and research. His main interest is immunoprofiling and elucidating the mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis and progression of cancer, particularly lung cancers, by applying various staining techniques and imaging platforms that include immunohistochemical (IHC) staining, multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF), multiplex RNAscope, and high-plex imaging platforms such as CO-Detection by indEXing (CODEX) and multiplexed ion beam imaging (MIBI). He also uses various scanning systems and image analysis software, including Image Pro-plus, Aperio Tool Box, GENIE, InForm, HALLO, Visiopharm, Tissue Studio, and Image Mainer. He is particularly interested in the characterization of the immune response in immunotherapy in longitudinal cancer studies and have discovered and characterized new biomarkers to use in future treatment approaches. He has more than 15 years of research experience as teaching technicians, graduate students, and doctoral and postdoctoral fellows. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 articles on lung cancer, interstitial lung diseases in human and animal models, and immune-profiling using the various image analysis–based methodologies described above. He has also authored or co-authored several abstracts and presentations for national and international scientific meetings, seven book chapters, and many reports on pulmonary pathology and other medical topics. He supervises the Multiplex Immunofluorescence and Digital Pathology Laboratory, which involves mIF and image analyses that include low-plex and high-plex image analysis methodologies. In this role, he supervises postdoctoral fellows, research investigators, and research scientist pathologists, as well as highly specialized research assistants who have been carefully training in various techniques, scanning systems, and data analysis. In addition, he establishes new multiplex techniques that include antibody validation and optimization to incorporate and expand the arsenal of new tissue analysis techniques and protocols that can be included in his mIF laboratory.

Collection Overview

Multiplexed imaging platforms have emerged as powerful tools in the last years for the immuno-profiling of tumor tissues and helps detect multiple markers in a single cell resolution in the same tissue section. Due to these revolutionary technologies, a deep methodology is provided for evaluation of tumors in formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded or frozen tissues to improve the understanding of tumor microenvironment, progression, relapse or found new targets for treatment, in translational or longitudinal studies. Although, these methodologies can give us important information that can increase the knowledge of tumor microenvironment and hopefully improve the understanding of the factors that interphase in cancer to determine response and resistance to different treatments is still necessary a consensus between different steps to optimize those assays to be reproducible prior to clinical use. There are many parameters that have important effects during the optimization process of these techniques including choosing reliable antibodies, automated or manual staining, reagent concentrations, and incubation times amount other. It will be important to put together all these parameters to determine the best practice of these different methodologies. The aims of these series of articles is describe the most important aspect of staining methodologies including the aspects mentioned below, describe the advantage and disadvantages as well as strategies of analysis of those multiplexed imaging platforms to be reproducible across laboratories or institutions. The articles will be focusing in the most reliable multiplexed imaging platforms including multiplex immunofluorescence, multiplex chromogenic histochemistry, multiplex RNAscope, multiplex barcoding systems, multiplex imaging mass spectrometry platforms and NanoString’s GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler among others.