Since its initial development in the early 20th century (1), immunofluorescence has now become a quintessential visual tool for research scientists to convey their discoveries. Immunofluorescence images are arguably the most gorgeous images in science but creating them is a daunting task. Few...
Frank Walsh, a tech in the immunostains lab at the Mayo Clinic, had a mystery on his hands: The Mayo Clinic’s slides had problems with HER2 and no one knew what the issue was or what to do about it. Walsh and his colleagues launched an investigation into the slide mystery and through a lot of...
In the day-to-day work of a histotech, we are always troubleshooting--from processing to embedding, microtomy, special stains, or immunohistochemistry (IHC). We are constantly trying to fix or improve on something. I want to tell you about some tricks I have learned over the last 20 years...
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This is Part II of a two-part series on the evolution of multiplex methods. Read Part I . Using immunofluorescence has several advantages over brightfield IHC assays. Immunofluorescence assays facilitate the visualization of multiple marker colocalization within the same cellular...
This is Part I of a two-part series on the evolution of multiplex methods. Over the last 5 years or so, there have been some major technological advances in the practice of histotechnology, especially compared to when I started my first histology career 33 years ago. At that time, the most...
Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is a useful tool in clinical diagnosis and used to localize specific antigens in tissue sections with labeled antibodies based on antigen-antibody interactions. Immunohistochemically double labeling is a common method used to evaluate two distinct antigens in a single...
Today, immunohistochemistry (IHC) is an essential and routinely used ancillary tool in anatomic pathology for clinical diagnostics and research laboratories. Over the years there have been great advancements in IHC with cancer research and clinical diagnosis, which has improved accuracy,...
My histology lab onboarded polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for dermatomycosis a couple of years ago. I was charged with figuring out the ins and outs of onboarding this new test while making sure we could pass an audit by CLIA and CAP. Little by little, the path to PCR was painstakingly teased...
We know that Immunohistochemistry is the combination of three distinct fields—histology/pathology, immunology, and histochemistry. With IHC we start with our properly prepared tissue samples (histology/pathology), take advantage of the fact that antibodies bind to specific proteins (immunology),...
Malignant melanoma (MM) remains the deadliest form of skin cancer. The current advances in patient cancer care and treatment for melanoma patients, which include wide local excision as a day case procedure or surgery which involve overnight stay in the hospital, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy....