Chemicon International, a division of Serologicals Corporation, has introduction of a Tissue MicroArray (TMA) product line designed to meet the needs of rapidly expanding academic research, biotechnology, and drug discovery markets.

To facilitate proteomics research, Chemicon has developed a series of 30 human and animal TMAs derived from normal and tumor tissues that are formalin-fixed, and paraffin-embedded. Chemicon TMA slides are provided in three flexible formats, including high-density (180 tissue spots per slide, 1 mm spots), low-density (60 tissue spots per slide, 2 mm spots), and trial-size arrays (10-20 spots per slide, 2 mm spots), designed for high-throughput automated or manual screening.

Chemicon's TMA products encompass a full range of top-10 human cancers and corresponding normal human tissues; specialized cancer arrays (breast, prostate, lung, GI, and skin cancers); animal and interspecies arrays containing human, mouse, rat, and rabbit normal tissues on one slide; and a human Neuroscience array comprised of tissues specimens obtained from different regions of the normal human brain. The origin and quality of tissues included in Chemicon TMAs are certified by pathologists. TMA products consist of four unstained slides and one hematoxylin-eosin stained slide, or as individual slides.

These new tools enable researchers to perform cost and time efficient high throughput microscopic analysis of multiple cancer and normal tissue specimens using various histological probes.

With the completion of the draft sequence phase of the Human Genome Project in 2000 and the final, high-quality sequence phase to be finished in 2003, the attention of the research community, biotechnology companies and large pharmaceutical firms is increasingly focused on studying proteins. The estimated 30,000 - 35,000 genes encompassing human genome may potentially generate from 300,000 to 1,000,000 proteins and their modifications. While structural information on human cells is kept in the genome at the DNA level and dynamically translated into protein molecules by RNA, all functional events that effect life occurs at the protein level.

"In addition to genomics, a new area of research, proteomics, has recently emerged as a field devoted to developing and improving technologies for dynamic analyses of protein expression," said David A. Dodd, President and CEO, Serologicals Corporation. "According to the current paradigm, the future of medicine, and of our Company, will be highly influenced by proteomics research, via identification of new disease mechanisms and drug targets. We are pleased to introduce new products which combine the wide representation of tissue specimens with high throughput required for comprehensive analysis of human proteins and broad screening for novel pharmaceuticals."

All Chemicon TMAs are manufactured on site using the company's proprietary Advanced Tissue Arrayer, ATA-100, and a bank of over 35,000 human and animal tissue paraffin blocks. Chemicon not only produces and distributes worldwide the 30 standard TMA formats but also offers comprehensive tissue array custom services combined with other complementary services (such as antibody and assay development, molecular biology, immunohistochemistry).