Imaging technologies have become a key aspect of the pharmaceutical research & development process to understand the complexity of biological events happening within tissue. The growth of spatial-omics is giving access to transcriptomic, proteomic and metabolomic data in a single tissue slice. At AstraZeneca, we’re integrating those data with gold standard histological methods to generate a holistic understanding of drug action using Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) and Imaging Mass Cytometry (IMC). The integration of both technologies is playing a pivotal role in modern drug development by providing Pharmacokinetics (PK), Pharmacodynamics (PD), as well as safety and target engagement (TE) information that are crucial for decision making.

Automated image analysis has been transformative in digital pathology as it has enabled robust workflows to extract data from images in a time efficient manner. The advent of Deep Learning tools for image segmentation has allowed tissues to be analysed in greater depth and precision. The tools in the HALO® software have enabled the team to segment regions, transfer ROI annotations, phenotype cells and relate this back to the MSI data.

This webinar will showcase different examples of applications dealing with cancer research to describe how MSI & IMC are in the center of the development of spatial biology when integrated with other imaging and omics approaches. Thus, differences in tissue beyond pathology can be detected informing about the tumor biology and metabolism in greater details and provide the true measurement of heterogeneity and comparative response to drug in tissues. We will detail the process and challenges, including interoperability between systems, of working with different imaging modalities and their respective analysis software (HALO and SCiLS™ Lab).