SERVICES
The CIIA offers a comprehensive portfolio of scalable, modular services, including sample processing, handling and storage, single-cell and spatial immune profiling assays, and integrated data analysis. All services are designed to support studies involving human patient samples. Select single-cell and spatial profiling and cytokine analysis services are also available for mouse samples.
Contact us at any time to learn more about our services or to schedule a consultation. Our team will work with you to identify the most appropriate services for your project, integrate immune analysis into your study (study start-up, protocol design and review), assist with grant applications, and provide support for analysis of existing datasets.
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The CIIA provides consultation during study planning and protocol development to ensure sample collection and processing procedures, immunological assays, and analysis strategies are aligned with research objectives. Our team reviews study protocols and lab manuals and provides recommendations to support the successful integration of immune profiling activities.
The CIIA supports grant applications by providing study design input, technical expertise, budgets, and letters of support. We encourage you to connect with us early (ideally 3-4 months before submission) to allow timely review, generation of pilot data if needed, and ensure that proposed approaches are scientifically sound and aligned with project objectives.
The CIIA offers data analysis support including data processing, troubleshooting, and visualization and interpretation of results. We support the analysis of both internally and externally generated datasets across all CIIA service platforms including flow cytometry, CyTOF, CITE-seq and scRNA-seq, IHC, mIF, spatial transcriptomics, and cytokine analysis.
Sample Processing, Handling and Storage
End-to-end sample processing, handling, and storage services optimized to preserve sample integrity (e.g. cell viability) and ensure consistency across studies. Protocols can be customized to generate required derivatives and optimize samples for downstream procedures and analyses.
Samples can be received from external sites to support multi-centre studies.
blood samples per year
tissue samples per year
fluid samples per year
vials made per year
The CIIA processes more than 2200 blood samples each year. Common collection tubes and derivatives are summarized in the table below. Additional types of collection tubes (e.g. sodium citrate tubes and BD CPT™ tubes) can be processed based on study requirements.
Collection Tubes
Derivatives
NaHep
- Plasma
- Buffy coat
- PBMCs
EDTA
- Plasma
- Buffy coat
- PBMCs
STRECK
- Plasma
- Buffy coat
Serum Separator
- Serum
The CIIA processes more than 300 tissue samples per year, including needle core and punch biopsies, and surgical excisions. Fresh tissue samples are received in buffered formalin, sterile saline or cell culture medium to support a range of downstream procedures.
Collection Containers
Derivatives
Buffered formalin (fixed sample)
- FFPE Tissue
Sterile saline/cell culture medium (viable sample)
- FFPE Tissue
- OCT Tissue
- Snap-Frozen Tissue
- Single-cell suspension (viable)
- Tissue fragments (viable)
The CIIA processes more than 50 fluid samples per year. Fluid samples include pleural effusions and ascites. Fresh fluid samples are received in their clinical collection containers (e.g. vacuum bottles, drainage bags and sterile containers).
Collection Container
Derivatives
Various clinical containers
- Supernatant
- Snap-frozen cells
- Single-cell suspension (viable)
The CIIA provides stool and saliva collection kits and cryo-storage support. Processing services (e.g. DNA and RNA extraction) for these sample types are not currently offered.
Single-Cell Immune Profiling Services
The CIIA offers integrated single-cell immune profiling including full-service flow cytometry and CyTOF support, and sample preparation and data analysis support for CITE-seq and scRNA-seq. Choose from established panels or work with our team to modify and create new panels for your study.
Flow cytometry services are available for human and mouse samples.
CyTOF, CITE-seq and scRNA-seq services are currently only available for human samples.
The CIIA provides comprehensive, full-service flow cytometry support from experimental design through to sample preparation, data acquisition and analysis. With a large selection of established panels, access to instruments and experienced operators, we enable flexible, scalable workflows for discovery, translational and clinical research needs.
The CIIA uses the Sony ID7000™ Spectral Cell Analyzer and BD LSRFortessa™ within the Princess Margaret Flow Cytometry Facility.
The CIIA provides comprehensive, full-service CyTOF (mass cytometry) support from experimental design through to sample preparation, data acquisition and analysis. Leveraging high-dimensional panels comprised of metal-tagged antibodies, sample barcoding and experienced operators, we enable flexible, scalable workflows for discovery, translational and clinical research.
The CIIA manages and operates a Standard BioTools Helios™ mass cytometer.
The CIIA provides sample preparation and data analysis services for CITE-seq and scRNA-seq. Sample preparation services include tissue processing, antibody staining (CITE-seq), and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) to isolate specific populations and/or live cells for sequencing. Downstream support includes data quality control, processing, and analysis using established pipelines to extract biological insights.
Prepared samples are submitted to the Princess Margaret Genomics Centre for library preparation and sequencing.
FACS cell sorting is performed by the Princess Margaret Flow Cytometry Facility. Samples are stained and submitted by the CIIA team.
Spatial Immune Profiling Services
The CIIA offers comprehensive full-service spatial immune profiling support spanning histology and immunohistochemistry (IHC), and multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF), and analysis support for spatial transcriptomics. Leveraging optimized workflows and established panels, our team generates high-quality spatial data to evaluate the tissue microenvironment for discovery, translational and clinical research applications.
Histology and IHC services are available for human and mouse samples.
mIF panels are currently only available for human samples. Mouse mIF panels are in development.
The CIIA provides full-service histology and IHC solutions for human and mouse tissue samples, from tissue embedding and sectioning to traditional IHC staining, slide scanning and image analysis (HALO, Indica Labs). Select from a growing catalog of human and mouse antibodies that have been optimized for FFPE and/or frozen tissue sections, or work with our experienced technical staff to optimize new antibodies for your study.
Category
Services
Sample and Slide Processing
- Grossing and decalcification
- Paraffin embedding
- Sucrose gradient cryoprotection and OCT embedding
- Unstained slide preparation (including TMAs)
- Tissue curls
- Mouse organ dissection and embryo isolation (>E6)
Scanning
- 20x whole slide bright field
- 40x whole slide bright field
Staining
- H&E
- DAPI
- Oil Red O (ORO)
- Picrosirius Red (PSR)
- Periodic acid-Schiff (PAS)
- Masson’s trichrome
- BrdU staining
- TUNEL staining
- Traditional IHC antibody staining (see link below for catalog)
- Antibody optimization (antibodies provided by the user)
- 2-3 antibody multiplex or sequential IHC staining
The CIIA provides full-service mIF for human tissue samples, from panel design and optimization to staining, scanning and image analysis. Select from a growing catalog of 6-marker panels that have been optimized for FFPE tissue sections, or work with our experienced technical staff to optimize a new panel for your study.
The CIIA uses the Quanterix OPAL 6-Plex Detection Kit and manages and operates a Vectra 3 Imaging System for mIF slide scanning.
- FFPE tissue
- 4-5 µm thick section, mounted on charged slides, air-dried, unstained
- Digitized H&E slide (same tissue block; can be prepared and scanned by the CIIA)
Analysis outputs include cell counts and densities (cells/mm2) with optional tissue segmentation (e.g. tumor and stroma) as well as cell-cell spatial distance metrics. Our robust and flexible analysis workflows can be further customized and expanded to align with discovery, translational and clinical research objectives.
The CIIA provides data analysis support for spatial transcriptomics datasets generated using VISIUM, VISIUM-HD and Xenium (10x Genomics), and CosMx (Bruker Spatial Biology). Please contact us to learn more about our analysis workflows.
Cytokine Analysis Services
The CIIA offers comprehensive Luminex (bead-based) cytokine profiling using commercially available kits ranging from 1 to 80 protein analytes for both targeted and discovery research applications. Our team provides end-to-end support including guidance on panel and kit selection, sample preparation, data acquisition and data analysis. Commercially available kits may be customizable and compatible with a variety of human and mouse sample types (e.g. serum, plasma, cell culture supernatant).
The CIIA uses a Bio-Rad Bio-Plex 200 System for data acquisition.