Department of
Pathology, Anatomy and Laboratory Medicine

Services Offered

Tissue Banking Services:

Tissue Banking Services:

Tissue-based research is crucial to the understanding of human disease. The Tissue Bank has Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval to collect a wide variety of normal and diseased tissue from surgical resections and autopsies. Tissue samples are obtained fresh and can be frozen in liquid nitrogen, cryopreserved, and/or fixed in formalin and paraffin-embedded. The tissue is used by researchers for genomic, proteomic and other research studies.

Tissue is provided to researchers with all identifying information removed (i.e., deidentified). However, basic demographic information may be provided for research purposes. All projects utilizing tissues stored in the tissue bank must be approved by the IRB and tissue bank personnel maintain patient confidentiality at all times.

The following information regarding each tissue sample stored in the Tissue Bank is securely maintained in a database:

  • Tissue collection information: tissue weight, mode of preservation, time of acquisition, time of collection
  • Demographic Information: Sex, age, and other non-identified information
  • Cancer diagnosis and treatment information
  • Other medical information including coexisting major diseases
  • Social and family history information if available
  • Diagnostic procedures and test results as available
  • Radiology reports
  • Pathology reports
  • Researchers can request additional patient data if part of their study design

Histology Services:

The Pathology Research Laboratories provide the research community with a variety of tissue processing and staining services. The following services are provided on a fee-for-service basis:

  • Grossing wet tissue
  • Tissue processing without embedding
  • Tissue processing and embedding only
  • Unstained slides
  • H&E stained slides
  • Decalcification
  • Frozen section, unstained and/or H&E stained
  • Routine special stains
  • Immunohistochemistry (IHC), antibody provided by our lab or investigator
  • Optimization of IHC staining
  • Digital slide scanning
  • Tissue microarray preparation

Automated equipment and manual techniques are used to paraffin-embed tissue, create unstained slides, and to prepare high-quality stained slides (e.g., hematoxylin and eosin staining). More specialized stains are also available based on the researcher’s specific needs.

The Ventana DISCOVERY automated immunohistochemistry (IHC) Platform is used to stain tissue with antibodies, to include those used to assess tumor antigen expression.

A tissue microarray system (Galileo TMA CK3500 Tissue Microarrayer) is available to rapidly assess multiple tissue specimen on a single slide.

The Specialty trained surgical pathologists are available to assist researchers who are correlating morphologic changes with biological phenomena. Pathologists can also help to optimize new immunohistochemical stains.

Point of Contact and Questions