Fig. 1

Workflows and components in the TAT system. Samples of blood requested by physicians at health centers or research laboratories are collected (10 ml) in K2 EDTA tubes and coded. The blood is shipped in < 48 h to Life Length’s laboratories for PBMC purification. After PBMC extraction, the sample is divided in three aliquots and stored in liquid-nitrogen. After thawing, cells are assessed for viability, counted, seeded on 384-well plates, and fixed. Q-FISH is carried out with a fluorescently labelled PNA probe that binds with high specificity to telomeric sequences. All steps are performed using an established documented laboratory workflow, algorithms for image analysis, and quality control