Tissue microarrays.
High-throughput tissue microarray (TMA) technology facilitates the assessment of the clinical relevance of molecular markers by enabling the simultaneous analysis of hundreds of tissue specimens. The widespread adoption of TMAs in many laboratories replaces the conventional one-slide-one-section approach, in which individual archival clinical specimens were placed on separate microscope slides, with the ability to assess RNA, DNA, or protein expression in hundreds of individual patient specimens in a single experiment. One of the applications of this technology is to significantly accelerate advances in translational research through more efficient assessment of novel markers of outcome and response, and as a result, a more rapid application of this knowledge to clinical practice.