Drug discovery typically begins with cell lines or other model systems which exhibit disease pathways which often do not correlate with human disease pathways. As a result, many late-stage drug failures occur due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the relevant biology. Instead, begining the discovery process with clinical samples of diseased human tissues offers great promise, by ensuring a starting point which reflects the actual molecular networks involved in pathogenesis.

However, the enormous complexity of the local tissue microenvironment substantially confounds these discovery efforts. The complex signaling networks between different cell types which underlie disease progression can only be viewed by isolating targeted collections of cells, resulting in homogeneous cell populations which may be analyzed without the confounding influence of adjacent cell types. While laser capture microdissection (LCM) allows the selective isolation of targeted cells, the limited amount of protein provided by LCM and related microdissection methods is far below that required by existing proteomics analyses. As a result, only a limited glimpse into the relevant proteome is provided...

Until now. The ultra-sensitive and high-resolution Gemini™ technology is uniquely compatible with limited protein samples procured by LCM from clinically relevant tissues, enabling effective global protein discovery from isolated homogeneous populations of diseased cells. Combined with proprietary methods for the analysis of limited protein amounts from both fresh-frozen and archival formalin-fixed tissues, Gemini™ is the leading solution for targeted discovery from clinical tissue specimens.