Mount Sinai Researchers Develop Marqo To Revolutionize Cancer Tissue Analysis

Scientists astatine nan Icahn School of Medicine astatine Mount Sinai person developed a powerful caller computational instrumentality that could toggle shape really crab tissues are analyzed and thief pave nan measurement for much personalized treatments. The study, published successful Nature Biomedical Engineering, introduces MARQO, a next-generation image study process that extracts elaborate cellular and spatial accusation from tumor insubstantial slides pinch unprecedented accuracy and scalability.

Developed by a squad led by Sacha Gnjatic, PhD, Professor of Immunology and Immunotherapy astatine nan Icahn School of Medicine, MARQO streamlines nan analyzable task of analyzing immunohistochemistry (IHC) and immunofluorescence (IF) images, which are produced via staining methods commonly utilized to observe immune cells and different biomarkers successful cancerous tissues.

When personification has cancer, pathologists inspect stained insubstantial sections nether nan microscope to spot which cells are coming and really they are arranged. Doing this by manus is labor‑intensive and usually constricted to mini areas of nan sample.

MARQO tackles this situation successful 3 cardinal ways: First, while different devices tin process full images, they often require users to chop slides into patches aliases trust connected costly computing clusters. MARQO keeps slides intact and finishes nan occupation successful minutes alternatively than hours, moreover connected modular graphics processing units. Second, MARQO useful pinch a scope of communal IHC and IF staining technologies, making study‑to‑study comparisons easier and boosting reproducibility. Third, MARQO automatically flags apt affirmative cells and assigns coordinates and marker intensities, past hands disconnected nan last validation to nan pathologist, keeping quality expertise astatine nan halfway of nan workflow.

We designed MARQO to capable a awesome spread successful nan field: turning analyzable whole‑slide images into usable, system information quickly and consistently. By automating nan dense lifting, we fto experts attraction connected mentation and discovery."

Sacha Gnjatic, PhD, Professor of Immunology and Immunotherapy astatine nan Icahn School of Medicine

While MARQO is presently designed for investigation usage and has not been validated for objective diagnostics, its compatibility pinch modular objective staining methods could alteration early applications successful pathology labs.

The investigation squad plans to proceed processing MARQO by improving its personification interface, adding precocious spatial and vicinity study tools, and expanding its usage successful high-performance computing environments to support large-scale projects involving millions of digitized insubstantial slides.

"This level could accelerate biomarker discovery, amended really we foretell which patients will use from circumstantial treatments, and yet support nan improvement of much precise crab diagnostics," said Dr. Gnjatic.

Co-authors see Mark Buckup (now an MD/PhD student astatine University of California San Diego); Edgar Gonzalez-Kozlova, PhD, Assistant Professor of Immunology and Immunotherapy successful nan Gnjatic Lab; Igor Figueiredo, Computer Engineer; Pauline Hamon, PhD (now inferior module successful France); and Giorgio Ioannou, Senior Research Assistant and lead connected nan mIHC imaging platform.

Funding provided by nan National Cancer Institute (U24, P01, and U01 grants), pinch seed backing from nan Icahn School of Medicine astatine Mount Sinai.