This three-year, $4.485 million project grant from the National Institute of Mental Health will develop protocols and workflows for a new imaging approach called Serial-Section Parallel Immunohistochemistry/Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (SPIFISH). SPIFISH aims to enable highly multiplexed, high-resolution imaging of endogenous molecules in brain tissue. The approach physically subdivides tissue specimens into ultra-thin sections, two orders of magnitude smaller than a neuronal cell body, to allow hundreds of discrete labeling experiments to be performed in parallel on individual neurons. Each section can then be labeled and imaged separately under optimized conditions for different antibodies and RNA probes. This overcomes current limitations of stripping and reapplying probes and allows both protein and RNA detection without compromising sensitivity. A subaward of $250,000 will support complementary efforts at the University of Massachusetts Lowell to further the goals of the Mental Health Research Grants program to transform understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research.
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