Analytical Imaging Facility

The Analytical Imaging Facility (AIF) is a comprehensive shared resource that offers a broad spectrum of imaging technologies to MECCC investigators for both pre-clinical experimental and clinical samples. The AIF also provides a comprehensive, expert, and cost-effective histology and histochemistry service, including tissue fixation and processing, paraffin and frozen embedding and sectioning, standard and specialized histochemical stains, enzyme histochemistry, and immunohistochemistry/ immunofluorescence. In addition, AIF supports interdisciplinary studies and has a designated microtome for cutting fresh-frozen human samples for research, as well a high-throughput automated slide stainer for uniform processing and staining of patient samples from clinical cohorts in the Translational Pathology Core (TPC), which is a service of the AIF. Analysis and digital quantitation of histology slides is possible using a high-speed, high-capacity automatic slide scanner. Imaging services include brightfield, epi-fluorescence, confocal, multiphoton, super-resolution (STORM & SIM), transmission and scanning electron microscopy (TEM & SEM), cryoTEM, cryoSEM, electron tomography, correlative light and electron microscopy (CLEM), and quantitative image analysis. Finally, AIF provides in vivo MRI, CT, PET, and SPECT analysis of tissue metabolism, oxidative changes, and tumor dissemination, scalable from mouse models to humans. The overall aim of AIF is to provide the most up-to-date sample preparation and imaging resources for a wide range of basic and interdisciplinary cancer-relevant studies, and to deliver these services in the most convenient and cost-effective manner possible. In addition, the AIF focuses on providing training of users at all levels of expertise in imaging and image analysis techniques.