Ontario Cancer Institute / Campbell Family Institute for Cancer Research 2 articles published in JoVE Biology Preparation of Formalin-fixed Paraffin-embedded Tissue Cores for both RNA and DNA Extraction Palak G. Patel1,2, Shamini Selvarajah1,2, Suzanne Boursalie1,2, Nathan E. How1,2, Joshua Ejdelman3, Karl-Philippe Guerard3, John M. Bartlett4, Jacques Lapointe3, Paul C. Park1, John B. A. Okello1,2, David M. Berman1,2 1 This modified extraction protocol improves RNA and DNA yields from more precisely targeted regions of interest in histopathologic tissue blocks. Medicine Diffuse Optical Spectroscopy for the Quantitative Assessment of Acute Ionizing Radiation Induced Skin Toxicity Using a Mouse Model Lee Chin1,2, Elina Korpela3, Anthony Kim1, Darren Yohan2, Carolyn Niu4, Brian C. Wilson3, Stanley K. Liu1,3 1Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto, 2Department of Physics, Ryerson University, 3Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, 4Ontario Cancer Institute / Campbell Family Institute for Cancer Research We present a diffuse optical spectroscopic (DOS) approach that provides quantitative optical biomarkers of skin response to radiation. We describe DOS instrumentation design, optical parameters extraction algorithms and the animal handling procedures required to yield representative data from a pre-clinical mouse model of radiation induced erythema.