SOFTWARE FOR QUANTITATIVE IMMUNOGOLD AND INSITU HYBRIDIZATION

A well-deserved criticism of stereology is that it is often too diffic ult to understand and use. Nevertheless, it is rapidly becoming one of the most effective ways of collecting and interpreting structural dat a in experimental biology. Recent breakthroughs in theory have produce d a remarkable set of tools that can be used to engineer new methods. The dilemma remains, however, in that some of these new methods contin ue to be too difficult to understand and use. One solution to this gro wing problem of technology transfer might be to simplify the methods w ith computer software. To test this idea, programs were written for qu antitative immunogold and in situ hybridization. Simulators were used to develop and test new experimental designs, which, in turn, were tra nslated into step-by-step laboratory toolkits. This paper shows how th ese toolkits can turn two-dimensional section data into estimates for the number of labeled molecules in three-dimensional organelles, cells , tissues, and organs. The results indicate that software can identify the key data of an experiment and reduce the computational requiremen ts of a new stereological method to entering constants and variables i nto data entry forms.