High throughput screening of normal and neoplastic tissue samples

The capacity to rapidly and efficiently elucidate a reliable set of disease specific biomarkers is paramount to enable a future of personalized medicine. High throughput screening methods applied to human clinical samples for the discovery of diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic targets address this need. Although the ability to analyze either thousands of markers from one sample or one marker from thousands of samples is the current state of high throughput screening, it would be ideal to have the ability to analyze thousands of markers from thousands of samples to expedite the early discovery phase of biomarkers and their validation. This review summarizes the current state of high throughput screening of tissue specimens and discusses its applications. In addition, the rationale, difficulties, strategies, and development of new technologies to address the need for improved high throughput capabilities are discussed.