Slide Scanner

• Subject Area: Medicine
• Term: Funded in 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 573195722

With the slide scanner applied for, histological preparations in the fields of brightfield, multi-channel fluorescence and polarization microscopy are to be digitized fully automatically, with high sample throughput, high resolution and depth of field. The digitization of entire slides will enable the archiving of microscopic preparations with consistent image properties across a large number of replicates and thus allow a microscopy-based quantification of morphological and molecular characteristics of cells and tissues. By digitizing the entire specimen, it should be possible to place such changes in the context of the entire tissue and evaluate them digitally using image analysis software. The applied device will also enable joint examination of specimens as part of collaborations and access from remote. A further intended benefit lies in the automation and optical flexibility, which enables, for example, multimodal imaging (e.g. combination of brightfield and fluorescence microscopy) of identical positions in the tissue. The simultaneous excitation and recording of several fluorochromes will allow co-localization and co-expression studies as well as investigations into the RGB (red/green/blue) heterogeneity of tissue structures. A further benefit lies in the field of translational research on tissue microarrays (TMAs); here, tumor samples from many patients will be stained for certain biomarkers on the same slide and digitized with identical image properties across the entire specimen, allowing correlations between biomarker expression and clinico-pathological (progression) data to be validly calculated. A comparable device is not available in the vicinity of the applying facilities. The proposed device will be used primarily in translational oncological research, in which histological preparations of tissue samples from patients (e.g. TMAs and organotypic section cultures) and mouse models (xenograft tumors, metastases) are digitized, in part to investigate screening-based candidates with regard to their spatial expression. One focus is on solid tumors of the gastrointestinal tract. Further applications exist in the fields of lung research, complement research, autoimmune research, chronobiology, neurobiology and experimental stroke research. The device will also be used for the further development of virtual microscopy in student teaching (human medicine).

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: Slide Scanner
• Instrumentation Group: 5040 Spezielle Mikroskope (außer 500-503)
• Applicant Institution: Universität zu Lübeck
• Leader: Professor Tobias Lange, Ph.D.