Background

Staining of tissue is a standard method in biological laboratories, but also in the clinical environment for diagnostics such as immunohistochemistry (IHC). After a certain incubation period the protocol often requires the transfer of the tissue into another staining chamber. This transfer is a critical step since the thickness of the paraffin embedded slices is smaller than 10 micrometers and, therefore, not very resistant against mechanical force so it bears the danger of destroying the biological material. In addition, the slice can be easily sucked into the laboratory pipette during transferring procedure.

Technology Overview

As a technical solution, a disposable pipette is engineered to have a hole at a specified spot for pressure regulation. This ensures that no undue pressure occurs, which might be able to damage the tissue mechanically and/or inhibits the tissue from being sucked into the pipette. For more details regarding the technical solution see .

Stage of Development

The prototype of the device has been optimized for different experiments and has already been demonstrated to be successful in staining procedures of IHC.

Applications

• Disposable pipette device for the transfer of tissue such as in immunohistochemistry (IHC)
• Applicable to all commercially available pipette suction devices
• Particularly useful for paraffin embedded slices smaller than 10 micrometer

Opportunity

DKFZ is looking for a commercial partner to produce and distribute the device for biological and medicinal laboratories.