Development of a Portable Tissue Micro Arrayer

Tissue micro array (TMA) is based on the idea of applying miniaturization and a high throughput approach to the analysis of intact tissues. It facilitates medical researches on a large scale of various tissues in parallel in one single experiment, exhibiting strong potential and impressive scientific values. A critical analysis of the existing TMA instrument indicates that there are serious drawbacks in aspect of cost, portability and complexity. This project, therefore, aims to develop an affordable, configurable, portable semi-automated Tissue Micro Arrayer to allow efficient collection of tissues in the most efficient manner. Three prototypes have been developed using screw-and-thread mechanism, with utilization of Faulhaber series 2224 006SR DC-Micromotor and MICROCHIP® PIC16F887 CMOS FLASH-based controller. A simplified model was obtained and set a basis for the future sophisticated closed loop control.