Technological Innovations

The Technological Innovation axis arose from the MALDI Imaging Team (MIT) created in 2002 by Prof. I. Fournier devoted to MALDI MS Imaging (MALDI MSI). MIT was one of pioneer in Worldwide of MALDI MSI and is now one of the world leaders in spatially resolved tissue micro-proteomic guide by High Resolution MALDI MSI for clinical applications targeting precision medicine.

Since 2004, MIT researches were focused on i) technological developments and ii) clinical applications transversally to the second axis of theunit. MIT targets since its beginnings on the development of MALDI MSI first with improvements in i) tissue preparation for both Fresh frozen and Formalin–Fixed Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) samples and ii) biomolecules identification with preserved spatial localization. This was pursed through the development of novel MALDI matrices (ionic matrices), of matrix deposition methods (spraying devices, automatic spotting with piezoelectric head), on-tissue micro-digestion and on-tissue tryptic peptide derivatization, unlocking FFPE tissue, bioinformatics (novel imaging software, MITICS, Principal-Component Analysis-Symbolic Discriminant Analysis method (PCA-SDA)), novel pre-spotted MALDI plates with ionic matrices, as well as targeted MALDI-MSI based on Tag-Mass.

The innovation axis is now focused is separated in two work packages so-called INTIMITY (For biomarkers Hunting) including Spatial XL-MS, IMHOTEP, BAT-MASS and GHOST and REALITY’MS (For personalized Diagnosis and prognosis) including SPIDERMASS and SNOOP-I. Clinical applications of INTIMITY was performed on Ovarian cancer (FIMBRIA, SENTIRAD).