Shared Facilities Spotlight: Integrated Pathology Research Facility

Post Date: February 5, 2025 | Publish Date:

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Photo of Kathryn Wikenheiser-Brokamp and Drew Smith working in the Integrated Pathology Research Facility

One of Cincinnati Children’s 30 state-of-the-art shared facilities, the Integrated Pathology Research Facility provides technical support for morphology-based techniques.

The Integrated Pathology Research Facility provides Cincinnati Children’s researchers a full complement of routine and advanced tissue morphologic services with pathology consultation to enable state-of-the-art technologies including single-cell transcriptomics and multiple spatial omics platforms. Facility staff have expertise and extensive experience in both clinical and research science, enabling them to advise researchers in strategies to optimize and maximize data obtained from their samples. Pathologists with multiple subspeciality areas of expertise are available to guide project design, interpret results, and serve as collaborators on grants and publications.

The facility offers diverse services, with the ability to customize them to individual investigator’s projects for optimal results, such as:

Automated tissue processing, embedding, and staining to optimize reproducibility, capacity, and turnaround times
Tissue sectioning and slide generation, both paraffin and frozen
Tissue staining with an expansive list of stains including more than 45 special stains, optimized antibodies for immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence staining, and in situ hybridization
Scanning and transmission electron microscopy services
Creation and sectioning of customized tissue microarray blocks
Whole slide digital scanning, both brightfield and immunofluorescence
Technician, pathologist and image support
Human tissue biobank for research use and tissue storage

The facility has recently added the following advanced equipment to enhance the team’s capabilities and support cutting-edge research.

Automated Tissue Microarray Grandmaster for customized, automated tissue microarray generation
New Hitachi HT7800 Transmission Electron Microscope
Olympus VS200 Digital Slide Scanner for generation of immunofluorescence and brightfield whole slide digital images.

The high-quality work generated within the facility has graced the covers of prestigious science journals, highlighting staff expertise and their contributions to the scientific community. Multiple staff members have been recognized for their expertise and outstanding contributions as recipients of Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation accolades, including Best Technical Expertise in a Shared Facility Award and Outstanding Contributions to Research Art and Imaging in a Shared Facility Award.

Email pathologyresearchcore@cchmc.org for more information or to begin working with the Integrated Pathology Research team.

Browse the photo gallery below to see some of our researchers at work in this facility.