Caption: The location and abundance of six proteins—e-cadherin (green), vimentin (blue), actin (red), estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and Ki67—found in breast cancer cells are seen in this multiplexed ion beam image. Cells positive for estrogen receptor a, progesterone receptor, and Ki-67 appear yellow; cells expressing estrogen receptor a and the progesterone receptor appear aqua.
Credit: Michael Angelo

The artistic masterpiece above, reminiscent of a stained glass window, is the work of Michael Angelo—no, not the famous 16th Century Italian artist, but a 21st Century physician-scientist who’s out to develop a better way of looking at what’s going on inside solid tumors. Called multiplexed ion beam imaging (MIBI), Angelo’s experimental method may someday give clinicians the power to analyze up to 100 different proteins in a single tumor sample.

In this image, Angelo used MIBI to analyze a human breast tumor sample for nine proteins simultaneously—each protein stained with an antibody…