Application for a slide scanning platform to aid translational research in the University of Dundee

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This proposal will allow the Dundee Imaging Facility at the University of Dundee to purchase state of the art research equipment called a slide scanning platform. Across the Schools of Medicine and Life Sciences, this equipment will support over 20 research groups working on a wide range of projects with the potential to impact patient care. These projects increase understanding of disease processes, and uncover how cells function and signal. This will help diagnosis and treatment decisions for disease prevention or to achieve best treatment outcome. The projects, using cells or tissues in the lab, focus on cancer research, inflammation and infection across many body sites including the brain, gut, and lung, alongside projects in neuroscience and liver disease. Many of these projects are already funded by the MRC and having this equipment locally will increase the value of research funding. A common way to understand how cells and tissues function in disease involves taking a slice (called a section) of tissue and staining for a protein or group of proteins. Proteins are the signals in the cell that drive cell behaviour and function. This allows the researcher to assess if these proteins are switched on or off or have moved location inside the cells during disease compared to normal tissue, or at different stages of disease development. Once the tissue section has been stained with a coloured or fluorescent signal showing expression of a particular protein, the best practice is to capture a digital image of the section through use of a slide scanner. This scanner is high throughput, offering the ability to obtain high quality images from many sections in a short time. This image then is uploaded into a software platform that allows the researcher to analyse their data, including the ability to focus on and digitally mark particular areas of interest in the tissue. This image is then stored to allow further analysis at a different time, to be viewed by groups of researchers working together and to support publication of research findings in scientific journals.