Patent ID: 8278034

Claim:
A method for preparing a microarray of frozen tissue and/or cell samples comprising the steps of: (a) obtaining a donor sample from a donor block comprising a tissue or cell sample embedded in frozen embedding material; (b) providing a recipient block comprising a frozen embedding material; (c) providing a tissue microarrayer comprising a cooling chamber for receiving the recipient block and maintaining the recipient block in a frozen condition; said cooling chamber moveable in an x- and y- direction relative to a fixed horizontal surface; (d) generating a hole in said recipient block sized to receive said donor sample; (e) filling said hole in said recipient block with said donor sample; (f) repeating steps (a)–(e) to create a microarray block comprising a plurality of donor tissue and/or cell samples embedded in a block of frozen embedding material, each of said donor samples having a known location in said block; (g) sectioning said microarray block to generate a section comprising portions of said plurality of donor samples, each portion of each donor sample at a different sublocation in the section at coordinates corresponding to coordinates of the donor sample in the microarray block from which each portion was obtained; and (h) placing said section on a substrate such that said portions at different sublocations are stably associated with said substrate, thereby generating said microarray.