About Pathology Core Facility (PCF):

The Pathology Core Facility (PCF) provides histology based research services for The Ohio State University's Department of Pathology, OSU's College of Medicine and to investigators campus wide. The PCF is staffed by seasoned research associates, each providing a wide range of expertise in histotechnology, medical technology, anatomic pathology, tissue procurement and clinical sciences. The lab is fully automated providing consistent results and quick turn around.

The services provided by the PCF include routine histology, immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, cryotomy, in situ hybridization, tissue microarray, T-cell receptor (TCR) beta and Immunoglobulin Heavy Chain (IGH) segment V-D-J gene rearrangement assays to identify clonal T- and B-cell populations suggestive of lymphoma, and bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) labeling based on the nick translation technique to be used for clinical and research in situ hybridization.

Aside from functioning as a histology based research service to OSU investigators, the PCF provides laboratory services to the Pathology Coordinating Office (PCO) for the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB), which is one of the multidisciplinary cooperative cancer treatment groups funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The PCF's role in this group is to prepare stained and unstained tissue sections, isolation of nucleic asic (DNA and RNA) from paraffin embedded tissue samples a well as tissue microarray for further testing and data collection. The goal of this program is to seek improved methods of cancer therapy and prevention.

The lab also serves as the tissue bank for Adenoma Polyp Tissue Bank (APTB) national clinical cancer treatment group, whose focus is to study the efficacy and safety of the drug celecoxib in preventing the occurrence of new adenomatous polyps, which put people at increased risk for colorectal cancers.

The PCF accomplishes its daily goals by providing research investigators with the highest quality product to help meet their individual research needs.