No cancer diagnosis without histopathology. Histopathology refers to the preparation and examination of tissue samples in order to study symptoms of a disease. However, today’s histopathology process is restrained. Information on 2D structures such as blood or lymphatic vessels cannot be seen entirely, and pathologists need to examine the sample via “eyeballing,” a process requiring a very high level of specialization.

Cutting samples into slices may miss relevant locations, distort and damage tissue, and thus often prevents secondary sample analyses, e.g., via genetic sequencing. Current staining agents only penetrate tissue samples relatively slowly. Information on 3D structures such as blood or lymphatic vessels cannot be seen entirely, and pathologists need to examine the sample via “eyeballing,” a process requiring a very high level of specialization which is also exposed to inter-observer variability. In sum, 2D pathology is not fully adequate for handling the information of our 3D human body. 

LIMAA Technologies can address this need by developing an end-to-end histopathology pipeline for improved diagnoses and therapy decisions. The LIMAA Technologies solution consists of two core components: a staining solution and a software solution. The staining solution includes a new staining technology using Nanobodies able to penetrate large tissue samples much faster than traditional staining agents. The software component in development entails a visualization functionality for pathologists to see 3D structures such as vessels, and an indication-specific AI-based analysis functionality to highlight key sample areas, e.g., metastasizing regions.

Initial use cases include lymphedema, lipoedema, and cancer. In the future, other use cases will be implemented. Based on these benefits, LIMAA Technologies aims to improve and speed up the clinical histopathology process for better diagnoses and therapy decisions. At the same time, LIMAA Technologies can be of relevance for pharmaceutical development.

LIMAA Technologies is currently being developed by a medical doctor and researcher in human genetics at Charité and a lab technican. The team is supported by advisors in business matters, technology development, user research, and market access.