Creation of a Digital Pathology Laboratory using a histological slidescanner

Abstract

The major equipment requested is a digital scanner model with a five-slide capacity, each slide being scanned completely in approximately three minutes. The image quality, low noise generation, small file sizes and speed in the process of scanning by columns make this unit unique in the market. We intend to establish a Digital Pathology Laboratory, the infrastructure of which will allow basic research, teaching, consulting and training of human resources. This slide scanner will allow a leap in how pathology research is carried out. By digitizing the images from slides stained with H&E or immunohistochemistry, together with the use of software for ploidy analysis, immunohistochemical quantification of nuclear or cytoplasmic staining, tissue microarray and blood vessel microdensity, the scanner will enable the rapid advancement of knowledge in pathology. The acquisition of this equipment will allow the generation of multi-user scientific works in digital pathology and allow a shift in teaching histology to undergraduate and graduate students at the colleges involved, because image analysis will be faster and images will be more easily stored. The prospect is that the Digital Pathology Laboratory of the UNICAMP Faculty of Dentistry of Piracicaba might soon achieve excellence in providing services to pathology laboratories, nationally and internationally. To that end, 12 professors/ researchers from various national and international colleges gathered and compiled this FAPESP Multi-User Equipment Program request. There are two FAPESP Thematic Projects associated with this request. We would also like to point out that the researchers involved are full professors of the Graduate Program in Oral Pathology/Stomatology at the UNICAMP Faculty of Dentistry of Piracicaba, which is currently the only such program to have received a level 6 grade from the Brazilian National Office for the Advancement of Higher Education (7 being the highest possible grade). (AU)