UVic lab gets new body mapping tool
Liz Clemis, a University of Victoria masters student in biochemistry, and Leanne Ohlund, a research technician at UVic's Genome B.C. Proteomics centre, use the lab's new MALDI imaging equipment to map the molecules in a mouse brain.
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Updated: July 07, 2009 11:27 AM
A Saanich lab is poised to build new maps of the human body that could lead researchers to find better treatments for cancer and heart disease.
With $620,000 in federal funding, the University of Victoria’s Genome B.C. Proteomics Centre at the Vancouver Island Tech Park is now home to the only MALDI imaging equipment in Canada.
The equipment “will be used to develop a 4-D virtual reality atlas of the human body and improve a clinician’s ability to diagnose and treat disease,” said centre director Dr. Cristoph Borchers.
While lab staff are still refining the process, Borchers foresees the first research project using the equipment – it aims to develop better diagnoses for heart disease – getting underway in the coming weeks.
The MALDI (matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization) equipment is composed of three machines. One creates images from 10-micron-thick tissue samples that show where molecules of different densities are clustered.
Separate machines can then be used to determine the molecular weight of what’s been found in the tissue, identify it and determine how much of it is there.
Software can be used to stitch the 2-D sample images together into a 3-D model, which can then be sequenced over time to show how diseases or drug treatments progress through the body.
kvass@vicnews.com
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